Eagles’ Jalen Hurts went from unwanted to NFC champion. He has the cigar to prove it.

Jalen Hurts, pairing a lavender jacket with lavender pants, sat alone Sunday night at his locker in the corner of the Eagles locker room and puffed a cigar. His work — a year after his season ended with criticism and uncertainty — was finished. The Eagles are NFC champions. And Hurts had the smoke to prove it.

He had arrived in Philadelphia as a curiosity, a backup quarterback selected in the second round who was first used as a gadget player. He even said after Sunday’s 31-7 win over the 49ers that “they probably didn’t even want to draft me here.”

Less than three years later, he’s the fourth player to quarterback the Eagles to the Super Bowl. He completed 15 of his 25 passes, rushed for a game-sealing score in the final minute of the third quarter, and did not record a turnover.

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Hurts’ banner season — he was the MVP favorite before a shoulder injury sidelined him for two of the final three regular-season games — will finish in the Super Bowl. That may have seemed lofty a year ago when Hurts and the Eagles were easily bounced in the opening round by Tampa Bay. What a difference a year made.

“It was a big surprise to many,” Hurts said when asked to clarify his comments about people not wanting to draft him. “But my favorite [Bible] verse — I went through a lot of stuff in college and it kind of stuck with me — is John 13:7. ‘You may not know now but later you’ll understand.’ Hopefully, people understand.”

Hurts lost his starting job at Alabama at halftime of the 2018 national championship game and spent a year as a backup before transferring to Oklahoma. Pundits were skeptical if he had the arm and pocket presence to quarterback in the NFL. He’s done his best to silence that this season.

“I have a lot of respect for guys who battle,” tackle Lane Johnson said. “That’s what football is about. It’s about battling and facing adversity and going through it.”

Hurts has completed 58% of his passes in two playoff wins, rushing for a score in each blowout victory. He is playing this postseason with a sore shoulder but did not appear limited by it Sunday, nor did he shy away from contact when rushing the ball.

He carried the Eagles for the first 14 weeks of the season and is proving to be the type of QB — one who makes plays without making mistakes — who wins in the postseason. The QBs the Eagles have faced in the playoffs — the Giants’ Daniel Jones and the 49ers’ Brock Purdy and Josh Johnson — combined for three turnovers. The difference in QB play has been stark.

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“I know I’ve been through a lot personally, but I don’t want to steer away from the direction of how good this team has been at playing together, being together, and challenging one another,” Hurts said. “When we experienced some painful times and some tough times, we always found a way to overcome. You want to be going into a situation like this, and we have a chance to go out there and win it all, so we want to prepare to go do that.”

The game only felt tenuous for a few minutes after Christian McCaffrey tied the score at 7 by leaping over and barreling through a cast of Eagles defenders. Hurts answered back, orchestrating a 14-play drive that lasted nearly seven minutes and ended with a Miles Sanders TD run. The rout was on.

“We found a way to get it going,” Hurts said. “It looked different, and that’s been the thing with this whole entire team and this whole entire offense this year. We come out there and throw for a lot. We go out there and run for a lot. We come out there and we’re just kind of efficient.”

How important is Hurts to the Eagles? They flew Anita Baker — the Grammy-winning soul singer whom Hurts frequently mentions as one of his favorite artists — to sing the national anthem. Soon, they could match that affection with a contract extension. The questions that hovered around Hurts last January have seemed to dissipate like a cloud of smoke

“All I know and this is a fact — he’s about to get paid,” Jordan Mailata said. “Oh my God. Oh my God. Pay the man.”

The man who would pay that extension — Eagles owner Jeffrey Lurie — called Hurts a “great young leader” and “terrific quarterback.”

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“When we drafted him, it was the upside we were banking on,” Lurie said. “We thought he had a huge upside. It takes a couple years. Someone who is so dedicated as Jalen and such a great teammate, inevitably he’s going to maximize everything he has. That’s what he’s done.”

Hurts’ development this season to be considered a franchise QB is often credited to a tireless work ethic, something Mailata sees every night at the team’s practice complex.

“Sometimes I stay back just to do recovery and he stays back to watch the film with the coach,” Mailata said. “I joke around and say, ‘I’m going to try and beat you, man. I’m going to stay here the longest.’ He’s like, ‘Yeah, but you’re doing nothing.’ I was like, ‘Damn.’ We get in at 7:30, get done at 5:30, and he’s still there watching film until 7:30. I’ll try to get one on him.”

It didn’t take long Sunday for the stage to be constructed on the field after the clock struck zero. Hurts soon stood on top, waiting to hold the NFC championship trophy as confetti littered the field. He pulled off his jersey and shoulder pads, swapping them for a championship hat and shirt.

Once an uncertainty, Hurts held a microphone and led the raucous crowd in the team’s fight song. The Eagles, thanks to the QB who silenced the critics, were again Super Bowl-bound. The only thing left to do was light one up.

“It’s not a time for reflection,” Hurts said. “It’s really hard for me to do that. I try to enjoy the moment, but my joy comes from winning. I know the job isn’t done. I never knew how far we’d go, but I never said it couldn’t be done.”