Here is a sentimental reason to be rooting for the Carolina Panthers to win today and go onto the Super Bowl – Michael Oher. Who? You know who he is even if you don’t.
Remember the movie Blind Side? That was about him. Check out this clip if for no other reason than to watch Leigh Anne in her tight dress walk down those bleacher steps.
Sandra Bullock won an Academy Award for her portrayal of Leigh Anne Tuohy and Michael Oher went on to be drafted and play for the Ravens. (If you’ve never seen Blind Side, it ends with actual footage of the Ravens’ drafting Oher and him and the Tuohy family onstage with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell.)
While Oher eventually got a Super Bowl ring in 2012 with the Ravens, he never really became the great player that everyone hoped he would become. Instead, he became noted for his frequent false starts that always seemed to be called at the absolute worst times when the Ravens had something going offensively. After one of his particularly awful false start penalties I found myself yelling at the T-V screen “Hey Leigh Anne, trot your sexy little ass down there and tell him to stop doing that shit!”
Thus, when Oher left the Ravens in 2014 to sign with the Titans, many Ravens’ fans, myself included, had mixed emotions about him. Good guy, solid player, but with all those false starts called on him it was just too much to endure.
From the Titans, Oher then landed with the Panthers where he now starts for them. Would be nice and somewhat fitting if he were to garner a second trip to the Super Bowl.
On the other hand, if the Panthers are driving late in the game for a go ahead touchdown and Oher gets called for a false start, a lot of us Ravens’ fans will simply nod our heads and say “That’s the Michael we know.”
Note: Oher has never been particularly pleased with how he was presented in the Blind Side. I can’t say as I blame him because the movie Michael was made out to be a little bit of an Uncle Tom candy ass. In fact, Oher now goes so far as to say that the movie has been something of a curse for him (click here.)