Eagles ‘D’ wins ugly, Sixers pivot on arena, Cutter Gauthier sent packing by Flyers: A glorious sports weekend in Philly

The weekend began with a bang, crescendoed Sunday morning, then softly settled into a satisfying afterglow.

A traitor visited Philadelphia for the first time and fled, following a drubbing.

The Sixers abandoned their generally unpopular but Council-approved downtown arena.

And the Eagles won a first-round playoff game for the second time in six years, thanks to three interceptions and 119 yards from MVP candidate Saquon Barkley.

It was ... a lot.

It began Saturday evening with the latest sports villain. Anaheim Ducks left wing Cutter Gauthier, the Flyers’ first-round pick in 2022, demanded a trade before he played a minute for the team. They shipped him to Anaheim, where he has struggled in his rookie season. Saturday night, Gauthier finally played a hockey game in Philadelphia, where, on the ice he was roundly booed by fans and was challenged to fight by Travis Konecny. Inspired, the Flyers won, 6-0. Coincidentally, the player for whom Gauthier was traded, Jamie Drysdale, scored Saturday, just his second goal of the season and his fourth as a Flyer.

It continued at midday Sunday, and it was a bombshell. After campaigning for two years for support of a controversial $1.3 billion downtown arena and just three weeks after securing approval, the Sixers gave up on the project and pivoted to a deal with Comcast Spectacor, which owns the Wells Fargo Center and now will partner with the Sixers in a jointly owned arena near the current building in South Philly.

» READ MORE: Sixers abandon Center City arena plan

Not my preferred outcome, but billionaires will be billionaires.

All of which turned upside down the expected big news of the weekend: the Eagles’ wild-card playoff game against the visiting Packers late Sunday afternoon. The most impressive assemblage of coaches and players in franchise history welcomed back quarterback Jalen Hurts, who hadn’t played since suffering a concussion early in their loss at Washington three weeks before, and finished with a 22-10 win.

Darius Slay and Zack Baun intercepted Packers quarterback Jordan Love, but the Birds failed to score off either. (Quinyon Mitchell picked off Love near game’s end, too.) The Eagles did register a touchdown off the first play of the game, on which fortune favored them: Eagles linebacker Oren Burks knocked the ball loose from kickoff returner Keisean Nixon, whom replay clearly showed recovering the ball while on his backside while battling Jeremiah Trotter Jr. The officials botched the replay review and let the Eagles keep the ball. Hurts hit Jahan Dotson from 11 yards out three plays later for a 7-0 lead.

It was what you might expect from two elite defenses. It took elite effort to overcome it. Tight end Dallas Goedert provided that effort with the signature play of his season, a 24-yard catch-and-run that felt like it was unfolding to music from NFL Films.

The pass wasn’t perfect, and Goedert almost failed to make the catch, but then he regained his balance, bounced off Carrington Valentine’s tackle, then straight-armed Valentine twice over the last 15 yards of the play for a 16-3 third-quarter lead (Jake Elliott missed the point-after attempt). Goedert had four catches for 47 yards in his second game back from a knee injury.

However, it was Goedert’s first game with Hurts since Dec. 1, since their injuries overlapped, and it took a while for them to find each other. Hurts didn’t have good chemistry with anyone — franchise receiver A.J. Brown had just one catch — but then, Hurts hadn’t played football in a while. It showed. He twice threw low to Brown, who caught the one. He was slow to read coverages. He missed open receivers. He ran far too much (six times, 36 yards) and far too riskily for a player who’d worn concussion sunglasses for two weeks.

Hurts finished 13-for-21 for 131 yards and two touchdowns. No, he wasn’t sharp, but he committed zero turnovers, and he was victorious. After the Packers cut it to 16-10, Hurts led a 7-minute, 23-second drive that ended with a field goal and a 19-10 advantage. The defense held on fourth-and-4 with about five minutes to play, and Hurts took the Birds to the Packers’ 14, where Elliott made it 22-10 with 3:12 to play.

Hurts wasn’t masterful.

Barkley wasn’t dominant, just outstanding: The 2,005-yard rusher managed 119 yards on 25 carries.

So no, it wasn’t pretty. But football is hard, and playoff football is especially hard, and the defense made enough plays to salvage an ugly win over a good wild-card team and bring playoff football back to Philly next weekend.

Maybe next weekend will be even better.