Eagles move on with 22-10 win over Packers

Published 7:25 pm Sunday, January 12, 2025

PHILADELPHIA — Jalen Hurts was back from his concussion and the Eagles quarterback had all his original bandmates in place with him on offense.

That had not been the case very often since the team’s opening-night victory down in Brazil against the same Green Bay Packers team that stood between them and a trip to the NFC divisional round of the playoffs Sunday at Lincoln Financial Field.

And so we were all waiting to see if Hurts and his quartet of lethal offensive weapons could provide the kind of explosive performance we expected to see from them before the year started. Instead, of course, it turned into the Year of Saquon Barkley with the free-agent running back from the Giants becoming the primary option of choice for offensive coordinator Kellen Moore while the receiving stars all dealt with injuries at various points during the year.

As it turned out, there was no offensive outburst from the trio of A.J. Brown, DeVonta Smith and Dallas Goedert, but one was not needed.

That’s because the league’s No. 1 defense didn’t yield much, allowing the second-seeded Eagles to pull out a 22-10 victory over the seventh-seeded and undermanned Packers in the NFC wild-card game.

The defense (and special teams) delivered with four takeaways and allowed just 302 yards of offense. The Eagles did, however, lose linebacker Nakobe Dean to a knee injury that looked serious enough to keep him out the rest of the postseason. Nolan Smith contributed two sacks for the Eagles. It was the 12th time this season the Eagles allowed fewer than 20 points and the seventh time they allowed fewer than 15 points.

The Eagles will play either the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Los Angeles Rams or Minnesota Vikings in the divisional round. The Bucs, one of the three teams to beat the Eagles during the regular season, will play Washington on Sunday night. Minnesota and the Rams will meet in Arizona on Monday night.

As for the Eagles’ offense, it will need to step up its game if this team is going to make a Super Bowl run.

Hurts, in his return after missing the final 11 quarters of the season, completed just 13 of 21 passes for 131 yards. He did have a couple of touchdowns to Jahan Dotson and Dallas Goedert, but he went four straight series without completing a pass from the middle of the first quarter until late in the fourth quarter.

The Eagles finished with 290 yards of offense, which was their third-lowest total of the season.

The Eagles didn’t get off to one of their typical slow first-half starts, but they also didn’t take full advantage of three turnovers by the Packers and led just 10-0 after the first 30 minutes.

They also endured a major loss on defense when linebacker Dean left with a knee injury that knocked him out of the game after he made a tackle for a 3-yard loss midway through the second quarter. At that point, Dean was in the midst of having a monster game.

He was replaced by veteran Oren Burks, who was responsible for getting the Eagles on the scoreboard early with a huge special-teams play.

The Packers have one of the league’s better kickoff returners in Keisean Nixon, but Burks forced him to fumble on the opening kickoff and Jeremiah Trotter Jr. won a wrestling match for the football, allowing the Eagles to start the game with the football at the Green Bay 28-yard line just seven seconds into the game.

Barkley ran for 16 yards on the first play from scrimmage, and two plays later, Hurts had nearly seven seconds to find an open receiver, which ended up being Dotson in the back of the end zone. The 11-yard score was Dotson’s first of the season.

Officially, Next Gen Stats said Hurts held the ball for 6.75 seconds before throwing it to Dotson.

Two offensive series later, the Eagles went 57 yards on 11 plays as Barkley broke off a run for 17 yards to start the possession and Hurts followed with a 15-yard run. The Eagles had a first-and-10 at the Green Bay 13 after Hurts completed a 10-yard pass to DeVonta Smith, and at that point, the quarterback was 6-for-6 for 39 yards and a touchdown.

But the next three plays were all incompletions with Hurts under heavy pressure and the Eagles settled for a 31-yard field goal by Jake Elliott that made it 10-0.

The first quarter ended with the Eagles holding a 103-16 advantage in yardage, and on the first play of the second quarter, cornerback Darius Slay came up with an interception. The Eagles’ offense, however, went AWOL the entire second quarter, putting up just 22 yards and failing to take advantage of both the Slay interception and another pick by Zack Baun that gave the Eagles the ball in Green Bay territory just before the end of the half.

Hurts, after his 6-for-6 start, was unable to complete any of his seven throws in the second quarter.

The fortunate part for the Eagles was that the Packers couldn’t score in the first half either. Green Bay’s best drive of the half went from its own 43 to the Eagles’ 20. The Packers came up with nothing when former Temple kicker Brandon McManus’ 38-yard field goal attempt sailed wide right.

The Eagles’ offensive struggles continued at the start of the second half when Hurts was sacked for a 7-yard loss by edge rusher Rashan Gary that forced a punt.

The Packers responded with their first points of the game. A pass interference penalty on Quinyon Mitchell gave Green Bay the ball at the Philadelphia 9-yard line, but the Packers settled for a 26-yard field goal by McManus to get to within seven points with 5:46 remaining.

Hurts finally got into a rhythm again after the Packers scored by completing three passes for 61 yards. The first two went to wide receiver DeVonta Smith and covered 28 and nine yards, and the final one went to Goedert just beyond the line of scrimmage and the tight end turned it into a 24-yard touchdown by bullying Packers cornerback Carrington Valentine about 15 yards down the field.

Elliott missed the extra point, which is sure to keep the conversation going about how much he should be trusted, but the Eagles had a 16-3 lead, which they would take into the fourth quarter, but just barely.

The quarter ended with a 31-yard run by Josh Jacobs down to the 1-yard line and the Packers running back finished off a nine-play, 78-yard drive on the first play of the fourth quarter to cut the Eagles’ lead to an uncomfortable six points.

Elliott, after missing his extra point, connected on two field goals in the fourth quarter to push the lead back to 12 and the Packers’ feeble afternoon on offense ended with rookie cornerback Mitchell coming up with the first interception of his career in the end one with 1:51 remaining.