PITTSBURGH – Christian Watson tried to make it a normal day. That might have been the biggest challenge of his first game back from a torn ACL, given how far from normal anything has been during the past nine months.

But he was playing a game in Pittsburgh. Finally. Watson woke up Sunday morning and ate breakfast, attended meetings, played a video game. Battlefield 6. His usual routine. “I’ve got to play a game, at least one,” he said, “before I play.” Watson locked away the emotions from his long recovery that led him from lying on Lambeau Field in January, clutching his right knee in pain, to running out of the tunnel Oct. 26 at Acrisure Stadium.

Then he packed his bag and left his hotel room, heading to the bus.

“That’s kind of when it started to hit me,” Watson said, “that this is

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