GREEN BAY, Wis. (AP) — 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.”
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FILE - Green Bay Packers wide receiver Christian Watson makes a catch in front of Detroit Lions cornerback Carlton Davis III during the second half of an NFL football game in Detroit, Dec. 5, 2024. (AP Photo/Carlos Osorio, File)
The White House and a bipartisan group of governors are pressuring the operator of the mid-Atlantic power grid to take urgent steps to boost energy supply and curb price hikes, holding a Friday event aimed at addressing a rising concern among voters about the enormous amount of power used for artificial intelligence ahead of elections later this year.
The White House said its National Energy Dominance Council and the governors of several states, including Pennsylvania, Ohio and Virginia, want to try to compel PJM Interconnection to hold a power auction for tech companies to bid on contracts to build new power plants,
The Trump administration and governors will sign a statement of principles toward that end Friday. The plan was first reported by Bloomberg.
“Ensuring the American people have reliable and affordable electricity is one of President Trump’s top priorities, and this would deliver much-needed, long-term relief to the mid-Atlantic region," said Taylor Rogers, a White House spokeswoman.
Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro is expected to be at the White House, a person familiar with Shapiro’s plans said, speaking on condition of anonymity ahead of the announcement. Shapiro, a Democrat, made his participation in Friday’s event contingent on including a provision to extend a limit on wholesale electricity price increases for the region’s consumers, the person said.
But the operator of the grid won't be there. “PJM was not invited. Therefore we would not attend,” said spokesperson Jeff Shields.
It was not immediately clear whether President Donald Trump would attend the event, which was not listed on his public schedule.
Trump and the governors are under pressure to insulate consumers and businesses alike from the costs of feeding Big Tech’s energy-hungry data centers. Meanwhile, more Americans are falling behind on their electricity bills.
Consumer advocates say ratepayers in the mid-Atlantic electricity grid — which encompasses all or parts of 13 states stretching from New Jersey to Illinois, as well as Washington, D.C. — are already paying billions of dollars in higher bills to underwrite the cost to supply power to data centers, some of them built, some not.
However, they also say that the billions of dollars that consumers are paying isn’t resulting in the construction of new power plants necessary to meet the rising demand.
Pivotal contests in November will be decided by communities that are home to fast-rising electric bills or fights over who’s footing the bill for the data centers that underpin the explosion in demand for artificial intelligence. In parts of the country, data centers are coming online faster than power plants can be built and connected to the grid.
Electricity costs were a key issue in last year's elections for governor in New Jersey and Virginia, a data center hotspot, and in Georgia, where Democrats ousted two Republican incumbents for seats on the state’s utility regulatory commission. Voters in New Jersey, Virginia, California and New York City all cited economic concerns as the top issue, as Democrats and Republicans gird for a debate over affordability in the intensifying midterm battle to control Congress.
Gas and electric utilities sought or won rate increases of more that $34 billion in the first three quarters of 2025, consumer advocacy organization PowerLines reported. That was more than double the same period a year earlier.
Meta's Stanton Springs Data Center is seen Tuesday, Jan. 13, 2026, in Newton County, East of Atlanta. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart)
