Michael Oher doesn’t subscribe to the notion that no publicity is bad publicity. Even though he was portrayed in a likable manner in “The Blind Side,” a 2009 movie about his life, the Carolina Panthers offensive tackle feels the attention he’s received as a result of that film has actually hurt his football career.
“People look at me, and they take things away from me because of a movie,” Oher said recently, per ESPN.com. “They don’t really see the skills and the kind of player I am. 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 noted that “offensive linemen don’t get looked at” but that he gets “watched for everything,” and he has a valid point. The job performed by an offensive lineman is very rarely a pretty one. The less you hear about a guy, the better he’s doing. Nobody really watches linemen closely. But Oher was such a draw early in his career that people were watching him and expecting something other than the ugly monotony of offensive line play.
But those are laymen. I find it hardly to believe actual scouts and general managers would be grading Oher’s game tape on a scale that is different from the one they use to assess his peers.
Do the guys at Pro Football Focus — who graded Oher as the league’s 10th-worst tackle among 84 qualifiers last season — consider Oher’s pop culture history while assessing his play?
Oher’s public reputation might be worse off as a result of that film, but he’s ultimately responsible for what has happened to his career, and there’s a better reason he’s on his third team in as many years. What we’re seeing here is a guy in search of an excuse.
