The Bengals put starting right tackle Andre Smith on season-ending injured reserve Tuesday with a torn triceps muscle and hired six-year veteran guard-tackle Jamon Meredith for emergency purposes.
The 6-5, 312-pound Meredith comes to his fourth team this season and third in the last three weeks. Cut by the Buccaneers in the preseason, Meredith got picked up by Indianapolis, where he served as the third tackle for four games and played 17 snaps as primarily an extra tight end. After the Colts cut him Nov. 4, the Packers picked him up for a game and made him inactive before cutting him.
Like Smith, Meredith, 28, was in the 2009 draft and was a fifth-round pick of the Packers out of South Carolina. He's got 24 NFL starts, 20 at both guards for the 2012-13 Buccaneers. He started four games at tackle for the Bills as a rookie. Meredith may be able to shed some light on the Bucs since the Bengals travel Sunday (1 p.m.-Cincinnati's Channel 12) to Tampa.
ProFootballFocus.com had Meredith rated 64 out of 81 guards last season and 66 out of 81 in 2012. but he gives them some experience if things really blow up. The plan looks to be to stick with Marshall Newhouse after his effective play against Texans defensive lineman J.J. Watt following Smith's second-quarter injury in the 22-13 win in Houston. The next option is moving left guard Clint Boling to right tackle and putting Mike Pollak at left guard.
That's how the Bengals ran one play Sunday after Newhouse had to leave when Watt poked him in the left eye. It was Boling's first NFL snap at tackle, an incomplete fourth-and-one pass on the 1 to wide receiver A.J. Green in the left corner.
Since overcoming foot problems in his first two seasons, Smith had missed just two games in the three seasons since. He had missed the Clevleand and New Orelans games with an ankle injury this year.
Also Tuesday, the Giants signed off the Bengals practice squad linebacker Terrell Manning after he'd been with them a week.
