Will Andre Smith hold-out all of training camp because of contract negotiations?

by Kirkendall on Jun 21, 2009 11:44 AM EDT in Analysis Comment 4 comments

Chick Ludwig writes that it would be a shock, if Andre Smith "surfaces at Georgetown College". We're not talking about a 2-3 day holdout; the Chickster is talking about missing all of training camp. When the Bengals drafted Smith, he was represented by Rick Smith to presumably improve his stock during the NFL Draft after severely declining during a series of misguided choices in which people rose more red flags than the Red army. So the rookie offensive tackle figured that Rick Smith will help his stock, hired him, drafted by the Bengals sixth overall, then fired Rick Smith and re-hired Alvin Keels.

The issue here is that the Bengals reportedly favored Rick Smith. Once Smith was fired, a statement was released by Priority Sports (where Rick Smith works):

“In regards to Andre Smith, we are moving forward and devoting all of our attention on the high character, hard working and honest clients of Priority Sports.

“We were asked to come in at the last minute to provide credibility to his draft status and we succeeded in that task. Soon after the draft, Andre Smith became a tremendous distraction to our company. What we have subsequently determined is that Andre Smith does not match the culture of Priority Sports and the character of the clients we take so much pride in representing.

“This will be our final statement on this matter.”

Aside from the obvious, we wondered what missing training camp would do to Andre Smith.

It's been noted several times that Smith tends to have an immaturity side to him, needing a strong authority figure to keep him focused. If negotiations go deep into training camp, how likely is it that Smith will be working out on his own?

I believe it's a certainty that Smith misses, at least, a portion of training camp. It's not just because of Smith, his agent, or the team. Slots have to be filled and agents and teams are more willing to watch slots around their pick/client to fill, hoping to maximize/minimize the contract. As it stands, only two players drafted in the first round have signed NFL contracts. Both are quarterbacks that are competing for their team's respective starting job. If there is a positive in the optimistic thinking that Smith signs before training camp, it's that Mark Sanchez has already signed, filling the slot on top of Smith. Other than that, the Chickster could be more right than wrong on this one.

0 recs | Comment 4 comments | Share

Story-email Email Printer Print

Comments

Wouldn't surprise me in the least

I’ve been fearing something like this honestly, and it looks probably to me for a few reasons. First, his agent, Mr. Keels, is going to have something to prove since there was competition for his client. He’s going to be hell-bent on getting the deal done for the most money. Second, the position in front of us is Matt Sanchez, and his deal is something like a 50% increase from the 5th pick last year. That’s a huge increase that the Bengals are not going to be willing to match. They’ll probably wait until the 7th pick gets signed, as the usually do. The silver lining may be that the 7th pick was the goofy Oakland WR pick – hopefully he won’t hold out too long since everyone was scratching their heads as to why he was selected there in the first place. Finally, a lot of these issues can be resolved when a player puts the onus on his agent to get the deal done. With all the reports of Smith’s immaturity, that just doesn’t seem too likely to me

by McWad on Jun 21, 2009 12:48 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Just think…save 5 other players we could have had anyone we wanted. And we just had to have Andre Smith. Of course there’s going to be a holdout. Go Bengals!!!

by bodacio on Jun 21, 2009 9:47 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Just another reason the Bengals moved him to the right side, they expect a holdout

by Tommyboy45 on Jun 22, 2009 1:42 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Yes

There is a perfect storm brewing here which makes me think that Andre smith will not need to plug George town into his GPS.
1. The Bengals always sign their first pick late. They let the market set, so that they don’t over pay. They will let Jason Smith, Eugene Monroe, and Hewary-Bey and Curry sign before they sign Adre Smith.

2. Sanchez signed for Huge money. This will throw off braketing oin favor of Smith.

3. Smith is having agent issues, which doesn’t bode well. I also think that Smith will be heavily influenced by his agent.

In the Bengals favor, they are willing to pay a RT like a LT, and I think that Heyward-Bey will sign below market value due to injury issues; however, that could be extended.

by jim0ijk on Jun 22, 2009 5:30 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs