Former Raven Michael Oher: 'Blind Side' Hurt NFL Career

“The Blind Side,” the Academy Award-winning movie about Michael Oher’s unstable childhood on the mean streets of Nashville before he achieved football success, has hurt his NFL career, says the former Baltimore Ravens player.

Oher, now with the Carolina Panthers, was in a scuffle during minicamp with another player. When asked if the altercation means he has something to prove as he tries to resurrect his career, Oher told ESPN preconceptions from the movie have dogged his NFL career.

“People look at me, and they take things away from me because of a movie. They don’t really see the skills and the kind of player I am,” Oher said. “That’s why I get downgraded so much, because of something off the field.

“This stuff, calling me a bust, people saying if I can play or not ... that has nothing to do with football. It’s something else off the field. That’s why I don’t like that movie.’’

Oher played for the Ravens from 2009 to 2013, then signed a four-year, $20 million deal with the Tennessee Titans. Reports said he had a disappointing season and was released after one year when he was injured.

The Bleacher Report’s Dan Carson says that Oher has battled public and NFL expectations since the movie’s depiction of his “other worldly blocking abilities.”

Writes Carson: “It’s not surprising to hear the guy who just wanted a safe place to sleep at night as a youth grew up to resent the movie that packaged him as a folk hero capable of football wizardry. After all, hype is hype, and trying to live up to your finest moments every day, in front of thousands, sounds like the most tiring job of all.”

The NFC South division champion Carolina Panthers signed the 6-4, 315-pound Oher in March to a two-year contract. On the team’s website Oher says the foot injury had been nagging at him through every NFL season, and he was glad to finally have it taken care of.

And he spoke in the March 2015 interview in more positive terms of the movie that chronicled his hard-scrabble youth and early football career.

“It’s a great story that inspired a lot of people,” Oher said on the Panthers website. “Offensive linemen usually don’t get that type of attention and I’ve never sought that out, but it’s something I’m trying to embrace.

“It’s been a tough road, but it made me the person I am today, made me mentally tough and able to embrace adversity and get through tough times while not taking anything for granted.”

»Photo of Michael Oher, from Carolina Panthers website