Pittsburgh Steelers second-year wide receiver Markus Wheaton might have a disfigured pinkie finger on his right hand, but it sounds like there’s nothing wrong with his legs.
According to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Wheaton is “looking fast and sure-handed” in OTA practices thus far as the offense spending a good deal of time working on their deep passing game.
Wheaton, who certainly should have the ability to get deep due to his 4.40 speed, had 74 of his 227 college catches go for 15 or more yards at Oregon State. He didn’t get much of a chance to show what he could do during his rookie season thanks to him suffering a broken finger during the game in London against the Minnesota Vikings. From that point forward he played all of 105 snaps on offense with just 70 of those plays being pass plays.
With both Emmanuel Sanders and Jerricho Cotchery now gone, Wheaton is the starting wide receiver opposite Antonio Brown and it’s his job to lose. The finger, that might be permanently bent for good thanks to some sort of miscommunication that took place concerning the rehab of it, doesn’t appear to be causing him any problems.
Wheaton caught just six passes for 64 yards during his rookie season.
