PHILADELPHIA − The Eagles don't make things easy for themselves, no matter the opponent.

So after nearly everything went wrong for them, beginning with an offense that was sluggish, a special teams fiasco that gifted the Browns a touchdown, and injuries to three key starters, the Eagles somehow found a way to hang on for a 20-16 win over the Cleveland Browns on Sunday.

The Eagles (3-2) scored the go-ahead touchdown on Jalen Hurts' short pass to DeVonta Smith, who turned it into a 45-yard TD with 7:54 left in the fourth quarter.

Still, they had to hold off the Browns, who had a first down inside the Eagles' 10 yard line with about 5 minutes left. But after lining up to go for the touchdown on 4th-and-goal from the 8, the Browns were called for a false start penalty, moving them back 5 yards.

They kicked a field goal instead.

Then the Eagles ran out the final 3 minutes, 54 seconds, sealing the game on a 40-yard deep pass from Hurts to A.J. Brown with 2 minutes left. It was a risky play on 2nd-and-11 because the clock would've stopped on an incomplete pass, and the Browns still had a timeout.

They could have gotten the ball back with one more stop.

"We had that mindset there of, 'Hey, let's not give this ball back,'" Eagles coach Nick Sirianni said. "Don't put our defense in a position where they got to stop them in two-minute."

For Brown, it was his first game back after missing three with a hamstring injury. He finished with 6 catches for 116 yards, including a 22-yard TD in the second quarter to give the Eagles a 10-0 lead.

"The play all along was to throw me the ball," Brown said. "We saw what we liked, and we made the play."

Added Hurts, who had his first turnover-free game since last Nov. 5, a span of 12 games: "It's an alert in my mind, yeah (to go to Brown based on the coverage). You alert something, it always has the potential to be number one. That's not necessarily the guy that it's drawn up to go to, but everybody's accessible.”

It was a slog up until that last drive. The Eagles began the game like they were still on their week off against the moribund Browns (1-5), even with the return to the lineup of Brown, Smith and right tackle Lane Johnson.

They didn't score in the first quarter for the fifth straight game. And the good vibes of the starting offense being intact for the first time since the opener on Sept. 6, lasted all of three plays. That's when star tight end Dallas Goedert left with a hamstring injury.

And it only got worse as cornerback Darius Slay left in the third quarter with a knee injury and left tackle Jordan Mailata in the fourth quarter with a hamstring injury. Mailata was carted off into the locker room.

There was no update on the severity of the injuries after the game.

And Sirianni, who yelled at the fans late in the game after they had booed the Eagles throughout much of the game, didn't want to hear about the slow start.

"The defense started fast as (expletive)," Sirianni said. "We'll say it about the offense. The defense started fast. You know what? (The offense) started slowly. First two series, we didn't score, but then they put their head down and went down and got points and then they did it again.

"So, I don't want that to be in their heads. We didn't execute. We didn't call good enough plays, and we didn't score early on, but we scored and got up 10-nothing."

The defense sacked beleaguered Browns quarterback Deshaun Watson five times, held him to 168 yards passing, and limited the Browns to 244 yards of offense.

It was a big improvement after the Eagles' defensive debacle in their last game, a 33-16 loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, on Sept. 29.

Hurts, who started 2-for-8 for 19 yards, finished 16-for-25 for 264 yards and 2 TDs.

“Just coming out here and playing clean," Hurts said. " Good to come off of a win, especially after all the work that we put in, all the conversation that I've had with everyone. It's good to win. That's what it’s all about at the end of the day."

But it was hardly clean for the offense, even though Grant Calcaterra, taking over for Goedert, had a career-high 67 yards receiving. His 34-yard catch to start a drive early in the second quarter led to their first touchdown, a 22-yard pass from Hurts to Brown.

It seemed like that got the Eagles going. They were looking to take control of the game late in the first half.

The Eagles faced a 3rd-and-1 from the Browns' 31 with 32 seconds left when Hurts was sacked for an 8-yard loss. Sirianni said after the game that play call was his idea, not offensive coordinator's Kellen Moore.

The Eagles had no choice but for Jake Elliott to try a 57-yard field goal. That's when Myles Garrett blocked the kick and ex-Eagle Rodney McLeod picked it up and ran it back for a touchdown.

Just like that, the Eagles were in a 10-10 tie, and the crowd was booing them off the field at halftime.

"When you ain’t doing your job, that’s what’s gonna happen around here," said Smith, who finished with 64 yards receiving.

The booing only continued into the third quarter when the Eagles could only muster a 44-yard field goal from Elliott, which the Browns matched early in the fourth quarter.

Then Hurts and Smith hooked up for a 45-yard TD with 7:54 left. But Watson and the Browns came right back. They had a first down at the Eagles' 8 with about 5 minutes left. Cleveland was going to go for the game-tying TD on fourth down from the 8, but a false start penalty changed that.

The Eagles held on from there. Barely.

"Sometimes we make it harder on ourselves," Johnson said. "We can be more efficient, getting into the end zone instead of settling for a field goal."

As for the slow starts, Johnson said: "It’s definitely on our mind. (Starting fast) is something that we haven’t done for a long time, really dating back to last year … A win’s a win. It wasn’t pretty, and the way we start games needs to be better.

Contact Martin Frank at mfrank@delawareonline.com. Follow on X @Mfranknfl, on Threads and Instagram @martinfrank1.

This article originally appeared on Delaware News Journal: Philadelphia Eagles start slow, hold off Cleveland Browns as fans boo