Smith heard it all, and looking back on it four years later, he said it’s hard to disagree with any of it.
“The transition (to the NFL) was a little difficult in the beginning, but it’s what you make it,” the 6-foor-4, 335-pound Smith said. “I had to learn to do things the right way instead of taking the easy way out.
“I’m not the last person into the stadium anymore, I’m one of the early guys to get there,” he continued. “I’m always in my playbook, eating the right way, conditioning, working hard through practice instead of just loafing around and having fun. I look back (on my rookie year) and say, ‘Wow, I’ve really come a long way.”
Smith won the 2008 Outland Trophy — regarded as the Heisman for lineman — as a junior at Alabama and entered the draft early. But he missed most of his first preseason due to a contract holdout and then suffered a broken foot his first week of practice.
He played in just six games his rookie season and only seven the following year. But last year he was healthy and started at right tackle in all 14 of the games in which he appeared and was a big reason why the Bengals tied for fourth in the NFL in fewest sacks allowed.
“Last year Andre really grew into the player we drafted and expected to have,” Bengals head coach Marvin Lewis said. “Unfortunately it got delayed and sideways (during his rookie season) for different reasons, with the holdout and an immediate injury and so forth.
“(Last year) you just saw the personality come out of a guy that was picked where he was picked in the draft,” Lewis continued. “The total man — all the qualities of a first-round pick, particularly a high first-round pick — they began to emerge throughout last year.”
And Smith, who is entering the final year of his four-year contract, has continued to show progress during the offseason and the first week of training camp.
“Andre right now is playing like a big league right tackle,” Bengals offensive line coach Paul Alexander said. “He’s at times unbelievable. He is everything we dreamed he would be, and maybe more.
“He’s learned what the pro game is,” Alexander continued. “Right now he’s playing at a very high level. You pair him with (left tackle Andrew) Whitworth, and we’ve got a hell of a pair of tackles.”
Smith said his goal is for he and Whitworth to be considered the best tackle tandem in the NFL.
“We talk about that all the time,” he said. “We take pride in that, him being the dominant left tackle that he is and me being the right tackle that I am. I believe I’ve matured a lot. I lived and I learned.”
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