Pittsburg, PA
Packers’ Christian Watson expects to make his season debut Sunday at Pittsburgh
GREEN BAY, Wis. — While so much of the focus of Sunday’s prime-time matchup between Green Bay and Pittsburgh has been on Steelers quarterback Aaron Rodgers facing his former team, Christian Watson plans on it being a special night for him, too.
The Packers wide receiver expects to return to game action for the first time in nearly 10 months.
“That’s my plan,” Watson said after Wednesday’s practice. “I say it every week — obviously just leaving it up to the trainers — but my goal and my plan is to play this week.”
If his plan comes to fruition, it will mark Watson’s first game action since he tore the anterior cruciate ligament in his right knee during the Packers’ Jan. 5 regular-season finale against the Chicago Bears.
The Packers opened Watson’s 21-day practice window on Oct. 6, when they returned from their bye week, shortly after signing him to a one-year extension that includes $11 million in new money and keeps him under contract with the Packers for next season, alleviating concerns he might have had about trying to rush back to game action and earn a new contract.
The team could wait until after Sunday night’s game to activate him from the physically unable to perform list. Watson, whose in-practice workload has steadily increased over the past two weeks, believes his surgically repaired knee is ready.
In fact, the 2022 second-round pick believes his knee has been ready. Watson was listed as a limited participant in Wednesday’s practice,
“I’d say I could’ve played last week, too, to be honest,” Watson said of the Packers’ 27-23 win at Arizona on Sunday. “But, obviously, (I’ve) got to make sure I’m hearing everybody’s opinions on everything and being as smart as possible about it.”
There’s no question that Watson brings a different dimension to the Packers’ offense.
He finished last season with 29 receptions for a career-high 620 yards and two touchdowns, with his 21.4-yard per-catch average leading the team and ranking second in the NFL.
With rookie first-round pick Matthew Golden having emerged in recent weeks, Watson’s return would give the Packers two wide receivers with elite speed to stretch defenses and open up other aspects of the offense.
“(That’s) a lot of speed, man,” said Golden, who has caught seven passes for 123 yards over the past two games. “I’m excited for him coming back. Definitely going to open up a lot of things.
“I’ve watched him work each and every day to get back where he is now. I’m excited for him. I’m ready to see him go.”
The final call on whether Watson is ready to go will be made by the medical staff, of course. And while the Steelers’ home field at Acrisure Stadium has drawn criticism from players in recent weeks, Watson insisted that the field conditions shouldn’t matter in his comeback.
“When I’m at 100 percent, obviously, in years past, I wasn’t thinking about the surfaces,” Watson said. “If I’m worried about the turf, then honestly, I probably wouldn’t be playing, anyway. My goal is to feel 100 percent, so that’s not really something that we’re thinking about.”
Pittsburg, PA
Man’s body found underneath trailer behind former Shop ‘n Save in Carrick
Pittsburgh Police detectives are investigating after a man’s body was found underneath a trailer behind the former Shop ‘n Save store in the city’s Carrick neighborhood.
Pittsburgh Public Safety said late Monday night that detectives from the Violent Crime division responded to the area of Amanda Street and Wynoka Street in Carrick after a man’s body was found around 8:30 p.m.
Public Safety said the man’s body was found underneath a trailer and that he was pronounced dead by medics at the scene.
A photo provided by Pittsburgh Public Safety shows officers surrounding a taped off area and what appears to be a refrigerated trailer parked at the loading dock along Amanda Street behind the former Brownsville Shop n’ Save, which closed its doors last month.
No details surrounding the circumstances of the man’s death were provided by Public Safety, who said that the cause and the manner of the man’s death will be determined by the Allegheny County Medical Examiner’s Office.
The man’s identity has not been released.
Public Safety said the investigation into the man’s death is “ongoing.”
Pittsburg, PA
Record number of peregrine falcons counted in Allegheny County
In the early 1960s, the peregrine falcon population declined so sharply that the raptors weren’t even nesting in Pennsylvania. But now, the National Aviary says a record number have been counted in Allegheny County.
The National Aviary says six peregrine falcons were recorded in the county during the annual Audubon Christmas Bird Count. The nation’s longest-running citizen science project collects data on bird populations for ornithologists, the aviary says. It also plays a role in guiding conservation action, like what was needed to bring peregrine falcons back from the brink of extinction.
Because of the use of DDT, peregrine falcons were no longer nesting in the state of Pennsylvania by the early 1960s, the aviary said. But after the harmful pesticide, which negatively affects reproduction rates in birds, was banned in 1972, conservation efforts have helped the peregrine falcon rebound. It was removed from the federal endangered species list in 1999 and Pennsylvania’s list in 2021.
The record number of peregrine falcons in Allegheny County is thanks in part to the nest on top of Pitt’s Cathedral of Learning in Oakland. For the past two years, biologists with the Pennsylvania Game Commission have banded chicks born in the nest. Three were banded last year, and two the year before that.
People can watch Carla and Ecco raise their family in the nest on a livestream camera run by the National Aviary. Carla laid her first egg of the breeding season on March 16 last year, so the aviary says the start of another season isn’t too far away.
Pittsburg, PA
Police investigating two late-night McKeesport shootings
Police are investigating two shootings that happened less than 30 minutes apart on Sunday night in McKeesport.
Two men were injured in the shootings that happened at two different locations.
Allegheny County Police said that the department’s Homicide Unit was requested and responded to assist in the shooting investigations.
According to police, officers were first called to the area of Lysle Boulevard and Huey Street, where a man was shot just after 10:30 p.m. on Sunday night.
KDKA’s news crew at the scene saw the outside of the Sunoco gas station along Lysle Boulevard lined with crime tape and what appeared to be blood on the front door of the store.
Police also had an area taped off around the intersection of nearby 5th Avenue and Huey Street. The man who was shot in the area was taken to the hospital in stable condition.
Police said they are also investigating a shooting that happened in the area of an alleyway behind Madison Avenue, where another man was shot Dispatchers said the second shooting happened around 25 minutes after the first.
The two shooting scenes in McKeesport are located around 1/4 of a mile apart.
At the second shooting scene, KDKA’s news crew at the scene saw police taping off an alleyway between Madison Avenue and Petty Street.
Officers at the scene were shining flashlights and looking into a black sedan that had its flashers on. The man who was shot in the area of Madison Avenue was taken to the hospital in stable condition.
Police didn’t specify if the two shootings are believed to be related.
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