BALTIMORE, MD – July 19, 2025
The Ravens have never been strangers to pain. In a city that bleeds purple and black, every tackle echoes the pride of a fanbase that demands grit — not glory. And yet, every once in a while, a player walks the tightrope between disappointment and redemption. You don’t hear his name on highlight reels anymore. You don’t see his jersey flying off shelves. But he shows up. Quiet. Focused. Different.
This offseason, the silence around him wasn’t defeat — it was discipline.
Odafe Oweh, the once-explosive first-round pick out of Penn State, knows how quickly the NFL can flip a narrative. After a promising rookie season in 2021, injuries and inconsistency haunted his next campaigns. He showed flashes — burst, bend, raw energy off the edge — but the sacks never came in bunches, and critics labeled him a “project” instead of a producer.
The whispers grew louder in 2024. Some fans called for his replacement. Others assumed his time was running out. But while the football world moved on, Oweh went inward.
He changed everything — diet, training, mindset. This summer, he returned to camp leaner, faster, and laser-focused, having shed nearly 20 pounds of unnecessary mass in a strategic shift aimed at recapturing his explosiveness. Coaches and teammates immediately noticed. His stance looked sharper. His first step? Deadly. His eyes told the story of a man with something to prove — not to the world, but to himself.
"I wasn’t proud of what I put on tape last season," Oweh said in a rare moment of candor. "I didn’t make excuses — I made changes. I’ve rebuilt myself for this team, for this city, and for the shot to finish what I started in Baltimore."
There’s no guarantee in football. The Ravens have a deep pass rush rotation. Young talents are hungry, and veterans are unforgiving. But Odafe Oweh isn’t looking for handouts. He’s coming for quarterbacks — and for his place in the story of this franchise.
Ravens DC Zach Orr praised his offseason transformation: “He’s locked in. If you watched how he’s working, you’d think he was a rookie fighting for a contract.”
As Baltimore eyes a Super Bowl push, the defense will need every spark it can get — and Oweh might just be the ember that reignites the fire.
He’s not asking fans to forget the past.
He’s working so they remember his future.
Stay tuned to ESPN.
