David Ojabo got off to a great start this season, recording a sack in the season opener at Super Bowl champion Kansas City. However, things quickly went downhill for him since he’s had a few healthy scratches from the gameday roster this season.
Even with all the pass-rushing woes that the Ravens have had this season, he’s still not getting opportunities. Ojabo has not even made the stat sheet since the Oct. 6 win at Cincinnati, when he recorded one solo tackle.
For the season, he has just five tackles (three solo) and the one aforementioned sack. Right now, it looks like he doesn’t fit into defensive coordinator Zach Orr’s plans. His current contract expires at the end of next season but given how far down the depth chart he is, one has to wonder if he’ll even be back for 2025.
His days with the Ravens may ultimately be numbered, and that’s rather unfortunate, given all the terrible misfortune that has dominated his career thus far.
Ojabo tore his Achilles at his Michigan Wolverines Pro Day, a few weeks before the 2022 draft. For the 2022 season, he played just two games, totaling one tack, a sack, and one forced fumble.
A serious injury struck him again in 2023, as he required surgery to repair a partially torn Anterior Cruciate Ligament. The Nigerian finished the 2023 season with six tackles, a sack, and a forced fumble in three games. He is one of two Michigan Men on the Ravens roster, Practice Squad DL Chris Wormley being the other.
Michigan Wolverines-Baltimore Ravens connections have been very prevalent in recent years. Ravens head coach John Harbaugh’s brother Jim was the head coach in Ann Arbor from 2015 up until last season.
He was a star quarterback for the program in the 1980s, finishing third in Heisman voting and winning Big Ten Player of the Year in 1986. Mike MacDonald was on the defensive coaching staff in Baltimore from 2014 to 2020 before taking the Defensive Coordinator job at Michigan in 2021.
After one season, he returned to Baltimore and assumed the same position with the Ravens for the next two seasons, ahead of his move into the Seattle Seahawks head coaching vacancy this past offseason. His successor at the Michigan DC position was Jesse Minter, a former Ravens defensive backs coach.
Michigan-NFL ties run deep on various levels, and according to a report in RG, the program is now pushing to move one of its road games next season to an NFL venue. The Wolverines’ current DC, Don “Wink” Martindale, held the same position in Baltimore from 2018-21. So that now makes it three straight Michigan D. Coordinators who had, or would later have, the same gig with the Ravens.
So even if Ojabo and the Ravens are to part ways (according to Spotrac, his salary cap hit for 2025 would be about $2.5 million), the Michigan-Ravens pipeline will persist. With all the defensive coaching connections between the two teams, plus all the top NFL Draft prospects currently in Ann Arbor, you’ll see more guys who once wore maize and blue don the purple and black.
