PHILADELPHIA — Dallas Goedert fired one stiff arm to a Packers defender, smacked him again and then — in a sports city known for its Broad Street Bullies — dispatched one final shot to the face on his way to end zone.
Goedert refused to be stopped — and neither were the Eagles in game in which they welcomed back Jalen Hurts and had the book on the Packers.
Hurts tossed two touchdown passes in his first game since a late-season concussion, Goedert threw those three stiff-arms on a rugged TD catch and the Eagles rode their NFL-best defense to a 22-10 wild-card playoff win Sunday night.
Hurts threw for a modest 131 yards, but played with no hesitation in his return from a three-week layoff after a concussion in December. He started strong — six straight completions to open the game — and held off the Packers with a 24-yard TD pass to Goedert in the third quarter that will be stamped on the franchise’s postseason highlight reel as he pushed around Carrington Valentine on his way for the score.
“That was a really fun play. It might my favorite touchdown of my career,” Goedert said. “I had one guy to beat and I was able to do that. I’m not ready to go home, and I was going to do whatever it took to help the team get the ‘W.’ ”
The defense handled the rest.
The Eagles turned a recovered fumble on the opening kickoff into Hurts’ first TD pass three plays later and the defense picked off Jordan Love twice in the first half. Holding a 19-10 lead in the fourth, the Eagles forced a turnover on downs when the Packers had a fourth-and-3 on its own 41 with five minutes left in the game.
Quinyon Mitchell had one final interception of Love with 1:51 left in the game that sealed the win for the NFC East champions, who’ll host a division game next week at the Linc.
Barkley, who led the NFL in rushing with 2,005 yards, had 119 yards in his Eagles’ postseason debut.
“A year ago, I put out a tweet when I was on my couch watching playoff football that I gotta find a way to get back in it,” said Barkley, who spent his first six NFL seasons with the Giants. “So I’m just happy to be here.
“And shoutout to my teammates and, most importantly, we move on. And we get another home game, so that’s good.”
The Eagles even had time for some light reading as wide receiver A.J. Brown flipped through the pages of “Inner Excellence” by Jim Murphy while on the bench. Brown had one catch for 10 yards.
Love threw for 212 yards and was intercepted three times and sacked twice as he nursed a sore right elbow that was hurt in the regular-season finale against the Bears.