On August 6, Marvin Lewis said Andre Smith will "get every opportunity to start at right tackle." We have to believe that that opportunity is fading. With one preseason game in the books, we're hitting that period in which unsigned rookies are risking missed miss time during the regular season. Of course, that depends on the position. A quarterback might not be ready, whereas a running back just needs to know the gap he's attacking. An offensive linemen could take more time. Not only does he have to know all of the protection schemes, the calls at the line, but he has to be in football shape.
And it's apparent that Lewis isn't so readily to promote that Smith will have an opportunity to claim the spot as the team's starting right tackle. During today's press conference, Lewis said "when he gets signed, he’ll work at getting up to speed as quickly as he can, and we’ll look at where he will fit best."
To be fair, there's really nothing to say. There hasn't been any known update on negotiations for several days. Lewis knows that Smith's learning curve is gone and he has to wonder if weight is an issue at this point. Hard Knocks did show Smith working out, staying in shape. However, the pessimistic part of me wonders if that just wasn't choreographed to gain public opinion.