During the Ravens’ offseason program known as “football school” in May, linebacker David Ojabo lined up opposite linebacker Odafe Oweh and practiced a power rush from the left side.
This scene taking place at an NFL facility would have seemed inconceivable six years ago, when the two were fledgling high school teammates at Blair Academy in northwestern New Jersey. In 2017, Oweh was just starting to find his footing in football, and the Nigerian-born Ojabo, a year younger, didn’t even know the rules before joining Blair’s team.
Yet each used freakish athleticism to forge a remarkable trajectory that roared from Blair through the highest levels of college football and into the NFL, where they improbably reunited. The Ravens drafted Oweh in the first round of the 2021 draft and then selected Ojabo in the second round a year later.
“It’s all scripted,” Ojabo said, and he and Oweh both have used movie references to describe their journey to this point. What’s the next act?
Heading into the 2023 season, the Ravens are banking on their dynamic, disruptive potential for a team that is well positioned for a postseason run.
“[It’s] a real great story, coming from where we both come from, being together, starting football late, soaring and having trials, tribulations,” Oweh said. “We know the opportunity that we have. We want to be those guys for Baltimore.”
Late Bloomers
As teenagers, Oweh and Ojabo were elite athletes, just not in football. Oweh was initially attracted to Blair Academy by its top-flight basketball program, transferring from Rutgers Prep in the hopes of developing into a Division I basketball player. (Oweh’s younger brother, Otega, plays basketball at Oklahoma.)
Yet Oweh quickly drew the attention of Blair football coach Jim Saylor, who convinced Oweh to take up the sport. With his size, athleticism and innate competitiveness, Oweh quickly made up for lost time.
He finished with seven sacks as a junior in his first season of football, and by the end of his senior season, he was an Under Armour All-American. He ultimately attended Penn State, choosing the Nittany Lions over a who’s who of top college programs that came calling.
That attention intrigued Ojabo, who was born in Port Harcourt, Nigeria, then moved to Aberdeen, Scotland, at age 7 because of his father’s job transfer. In Scotland, Ojabo dominated in soccer and basketball, and like Oweh, he saw a future on the court.
“Growing up in Scotland, I was watching LeBron, I was watching all these big athletes in America,” Ojabo said. “I thought to myself, ‘It’s time for me to take it to the next level.'”
Ojabo’s basketball coach in Scotland, a Canadian named Andy Field, floated the idea that Ojabo should reach out to American schools. So 15-year-old Ojabo sent highlight tapes to a half-dozen boarding schools, focusing on the East Coast for easier travel from Scotland.
“Some didn’t respond, some kind of gave me a fluky answer, and Blair Academy gave me a chance,” Ojabo said. “I’m really grateful Blair Academy took a shot on me.”
At Blair, he found an immediate connection in Oweh; Oweh’s father was born in Nigeria, and his mother was also of Nigerian descent. Oweh’s parents retained their Nigerian identity in their New Jersey home, and their Nigerian cooking was a big hit with Ojabo, living 3,000 miles from home. (Oweh previously went by Jayson, his middle name, then declared upon reaching the NFL that he would be using his first name, Odafe, in a nod to his Nigerian roots.)
It didn’t take long for Ojabo to realize that his basketball dominance in Scotland wasn’t going to continue at Blair Academy. He didn’t even make the starting lineup.
“If I’m being real, in Scotland, I was killing the boys over there,” Ojabo said. “But Scottish basketball and American basketball don’t compare.”
Yet Ojabo also noticed something else: Oweh was having a lot of success with this sport that Americans called football. Oweh was about Ojabo’s size, they ran track together, and it was Ojabo who won the New Jersey state title in the 100-meter dash.
Ever the competitor, Ojabo knocked on Saylor’s door one day and told him he was faster and stronger than Oweh.
“Coach, man, he’s getting 20 or 30 offers? I think I can do something, too,” a smiling Ojabo recalled saying. “That was my way of pitching, ‘Hey, maybe give me a chance.'”
Soon after putting on a helmet for the first time, the 6-foot-5, 230-pound Ojabo was overpowering high school linemen with his blend of size and speed, even if he didn’t really know all the rules.
“Trust me, I’m still learning the rules, if I’m being perfectly honest,” Ojabo said.
Ojabo received a scholarship offer from Rutgers before he had ever played a down, and before long, more offers were pouring in. (Ojabo points out with a grin that he ultimately earned more offers than Oweh.)
Oweh earned first-team All-Big Ten honors at Penn State in 2020, and Ojabo moved on to Michigan, where he started slowly but blossomed in 2021 under current Ravens defensive coordinator Mike Macdonald. In his one season as a starter, Ojabo ranked third in the Big Ten with 11 sacks and led the conference with five forced fumbles.
Ravens Teammates
The Ravens selected Oweh with the No. 31 pick of the 2021 draft, a selection acquired when they traded tackle Orlando Brown Jr. to the Kansas City Chiefs. Oweh recorded no sacks in his final year at Penn State, so his selection as a first-round pass rusher raised some eyebrows. But echoing every coach who had worked with the 6-foot-5, 257-pound Oweh previously, Ravens head coach John Harbaugh and general manager Eric DeCosta said Oweh’s athleticism and speed were impossible to ignore.
Oweh had a sack in his first NFL game and finished his rookie year with 33 tackles, five sacks and 15 quarterback hits. Before last season, he was touted as a top breakout candidate, but after recuperating from offseason shoulder surgery, Oweh found success to be elusive. He frequently got close without quite “getting home” to the quarterback.
“As a competitor, you remember things that you’ve got to work on,” Oweh said. “You remember the things you missed on, so you can bounce back for the next year.”
Oweh’s playing time decreased and his sack total dropped from five to three.
“I’m sure any time you’re not getting the production that you want or expect and your personal goals, that’s probably a source of frustration,” Macdonald said, adding that he saw success from Oweh that never translated to the stat sheet. “I thought he really caught his stride at the end of the year. And the sacks, I just really believe they’ll come.”
Last season was a different type of frustration for Ojabo, who tore his Achilles at Michigan’s Pro Day just weeks before the draft. A consensus first-round pick suddenly faced uncertainty about his NFL future.
Ojabo, though, had a fierce advocate in the Ravens’ war room in Macdonald, who in one season at Michigan had seen Ojabo thrive. With the Ravens on the clock at No. 45 overall, they pounced.
For months, Ojabo watched Ravens practice with a boot on his foot, and even after being cleared to play, he remained a game day inactive for more than a month. He admitted the season was “a test” of his patience. Ojabo finally made his NFL debut in December, and in the regular-season finale at Cincinnati, he had a strip-sack of Joe Burrow.
This spring, Ojabo said he is “110 percent” healthy, and in OTA workouts, he and Oweh were an imposing duo firing off the edge. They expect to do that often this year, and on a much grander stage than Blair Academy’s Hampshire Field.
One such game will take place in London, when the Ravens face the Tennessee Titans in Week 6.
“I know my people from Scotland are going to come watch,” Ojabo said. “… It’s going to be a blessed experience.”
So, too, he said, is the chance to line up on an NFL field every day with Oweh.
“That’s why we’re smiling all the time,” Ojabo said. “To think that we both started playing football junior year of high school … and, God willing, are about to be playing big minutes for the same [NFL] team. Every time we’re out there now, we’re having fun with it like, ‘Man, what are the odds?’ We just want to take it as far as possible.”
Photo Credits: Courtesy of Blair Fine Arts Teacher Tyson Trish, Phil Hoffmann/Baltimore Ravens, Kenya Allen/PressBox
Originally published June 15, 2023