If you know anything about Steelers wide receiver James Washington, “lazy” would be the absolute last word you would associate with him.



Working 12-hour days on the family farm in the Texas heat as a teenager, doing the jobs that Dad didn’t want to do — barn work, fixing tractors, lifting large tires, baling hay with his hands — was routine for Washington.



That kind of manual labor makes running a couple of back-to-back go routes during OTAs and training camp seem trivial.



But as many wide receivers find out in their first NFL season, there’s being in shape and there’s being in wide-receiver shape. Washington was far from being in the necessary shape for the NFL a year ago. He just learned that a little later than most rookies.



“You see it all the time,” offensive coordinator Randy Fichtner said during camp last year. “They think they are in shape and then realize they aren’t in shape...