The four-game drug suspension of Steelers WR Martavis Bryant can be fool's gold for Marcus Wheaton to hold fantasy value.

Jon Benne called Wheaton "practically a bargain" with his 11th round ADP, which may hold water, but his ADP will surely rise. The Steelers have been pumping him up, as Jeremy Fowler notes at ESPN:

The Steelers have praised Wheaton's work ethic and crisp route-running for weeks. Though the Steelers do like him, I believe they knew about the looming Bryant suspension and prepared Wheaton for No. 2 status as a result. During camp, Wheaton was always the second man up in wide receiver practice drills. He's responding well so far, breaking free for three catches and a score last week against Green Bay. He can play inside or out. How will he respond without the threat of Brown and Bryant on the field with him?

Opportunity is partly being on the field, but when a guy is not on the field, fantasy users don't have the hope to plug said guy in their lineups. Fantasy players are hurt when a guy is on the field and doesn't get the ball. How Wheaton will fare is a valid question, but we have still seen little reason to believe that Ben Roethlisberger will be throwing to him.

Wheaton only saw 13 targets in his 2013 rookie season, but he was playing behind Emmanuel Sanders and Jerricho Cotchery as a WR4 on Pittsburgh's depth chart. Those two were gone in 2014 and, despite 11 starts, Wheaton only saw 86 targets in 16 games. The breakthrough of Bryant as a deep threat in his Week 7 debut took snaps away from Wheaton, but Wheaton still only saw 39 in the first six games.

There are many reasons why Antonio Brown is basically the consensus #1 WR in fantasy drafts: he is highly skilled; Roethlisberger threw the ball more than all QBs but Drew Brees, Matt Ryan, and Andrew Luck; the Steelers defense projects to be a disaster. All of this provides a perfect storm for the Steelers to "have to throw"--especially while Le'Veon Bell is serving his suspension--because it is their most efficient method to move the ball and their defense will not make the clock their friend. But, most importantly, it is because Roethlisberger picks favorites in whom he targets.

Roethlisberger has not been a QB to spread the ball around for the sake of spreading it around or spreading coverage. He has his guys and he throws to them. This is why Brown 181 targets in 2014--2nd to only Demaryius Thomas--and a fourth-highest 167 in 2013, despite sharing the field with Sanders that year. The thought was that Wheaton or Lance Moore or Bryant would replace Sanders' 113 targets in a similar fashion of two players receiving large shares of the offense. That just didn't happen.

One could argue that Bell's targets are also up for grabs, seeing as the Steelers will have to throw to someone, but those are targets of a different quality altogether. They are shorter plays designed to get Bell in some space. Wheaton will not be that guy.

The excitement with Bryant coming into this season is that his role will be as the Steelers primary deep threat. He may only get you 40 yards when he doesn't score, but when Ben is looking deep, he is looking for Bryant and his TDs will be 40 or 50 yards in one pop. He is the classic boom or bust #2 WR on his team in a high-volume passing offense, and it is still wishful thinking to project him as a low-end WR2 in fantasy over the course of 16 games.

It is reasonable to project that Ben will be throwing north of 40 times per game while Bryant is out, even when Bell returns in Week 3. But it is far more reasonable to project Ben's completion percentage takes a dip without Bell; and Brown's targets reaching the high teens in every game with over a third of the team's total receptions. Wheaton will get his targets in the box score, but there is no reason to believe that deep balls designed for Bryant will go to Wheaton. If anything, we will likely see the Wheaton who started last season with near ten targets in a game or two, but Ben scrambles for hours and throws to nowhere more than the highlight reels suggest when the man on whom he's zeroed in doesn't have an opening.

In the red zone, Roethlisberger has always overwhelming preferred Heath Miller and Wheaton's non-special talent in his 5'11" body raises no hope for optimism.

The best hope for drafting Wheaton as your fifth WR is that he has a huge Week 1 or Week 2 and he becomes trade bait to upgrade your RB corps, get an emerging TE, or in a package to upgrade to WR you can actually start from week to week. And this is value as a roster piece, but not for the actual lineups you use to accumulate points.

By this token, drafting him in the ninth round is justifiable if you already have three RBs and four WRs to wait on a QB or TE. There are so many RBs with more upside falling to have three or four by this point and the scarcity of usable WRs puts a premium on having two in the first three rounds and four by the eighth. If RB+WR is your early strategy is to wait on QB and TE, grab one of those before Wheaton. If you're drafting a QB or TE in the very early rounds, there is not space on your roster for Wheaton before the tenth because you have to find usable pieces at RB and WR.

But Wheaton should not be drafted as a piece you hope to actually use in a lineup.