Andre Smith‘s one season away from Cincinnati didn’t go well, but the Bengals are interested in a possible reunion. The former Bengals first-round pick will visit with his initial NFL team soon, Jim Owczarski of the Cincinnati Enquirer reports (on Twitter).
This comes after Smith met with the Bills, so the 30-year-old tackle’s generated some curiosity among teams despite his rough stint with the Vikings. Smith played in a career-low four games after signing his one-year deal to venture to Minnesota. He spent most of last season on IR due to a triceps injury, missing most of what was a brutal year for the Vikes’ offensive front.
Smith signed a one-year, $3.5MM deal with the Vikings after playing for the Bengals during the first seven seasons of his career. Smith served as Cincinnati’s regular right tackle starter for most of this decade. The Bengals have Jake Fisher, Cedric Ogbuehi and Eric Winston as right-edge options. None performed well in the opinion of Pro Football Focus last season, though Smith didn’t either.
Although, Smith has some experience as a left tackle, and the Bengals lost stalwart blindside man Andrew Whitworth last week. So one of the aforementioned incumbents could well be set to move to the left side full-time after Whitworth joined Kevin Zeitler in leaving southwest Ohio for a more lucrative opportunity elsewhere.