But even then, you have the risk of running into problems if you have a bad start to the season due to those "regular season lol" thoughts
I'm not mad about it, I'm just confused. I don't understand why they're doing this to Smith to protect POJ and Ruhwedel to begin with, but the more important part is that I don't understand why they didn't even try alternatives to Smith-Rutta if they were willing to do this to Smith.
The only thing I can think of is that they're comfortable enough with Ruhwedel's game, even on his off-side, that they didn't feel the need to test it out before rosters were due. I think that would be an incredibly dumb opinion to have, mainly because I don't recall Ruhwedel ever playing on his off-side in Pittsburgh outside of a game here and there, but that's the only thing I can think of.