Wearing a tilted Ravens hat and a fixed look of disbelief, David Ojabo plopped onto a bench at his draft party, stealing a break from the celebration. He scrolled through his texts and shook his head at the sight: 105 unread messages and counting. Nearly all of them could wait until morning, the former Michigan edge rusher said, but he made a lone exception for the person who motivated him to start playing football in the first place.
“I’m moving in with you, so create space!” Ojabo hollered to Odafe Oweh over video chat, pumping a fist and flexing a bicep into the camera. “I’m a Raven, brooo!”
Less than six years ago, as an international transfer student still adjusting to life abroad, Ojabo left behind his first love of basketball for a sport in which he possessed zero prior experience and admittedly knew little terminology beyond and . Why? Because of the example set by Oweh, his friend and fellow native Nigerian at Blair (N.J.) Academy—and now his teammate along Baltimore’s defensive front seven after Ojabo was selected in the second round, at No. 45, last Friday night.
Combine this connection with the presences of rookie coordinator Mike MacDonald and defensive assistant Ryan Osborn—who occupied the same roles for the Wolverines last season, when Ojabo broke out with 11 sacks opposite No. 2 pick Aidan Hutchinson—and a reasonable conclusion could be reached that this was the most perfect personal fit to emerge from last week’s proceedings in Las Vegas. No wonder Ojabo found himself breaking down soon after hanging up with Baltimore brass.
“I’m really not a crier, but I was just so overwhelmed,” he told later. “I couldn’t hold it back.”
The tears have dried, but every last drop of emotion remains. Scanning the party at the Houston home of his American host family, Ojabo soaked up the scene. A group of loved ones danced next to a kitchen island spread of suya skewers, puff-puff dough pastries and other Nigerian favorites. A disco ball spun on the patio as hip-hop music thumped and a fire pit crackled; plans were in the works to switch the swimming pool lights Ravens purple and gold. Many attendees wore T-shirts bearing Ojabo’s personal logo, his initials interlocking beneath a crown.
To reach this moment of culmination, though, Ojabo had to overcome an army of Goliath-sized obstacles, from his football inexperience to most recently a torn left Achilles suffered at Michigan’s pro day in March that turned him into a symbol of the harsh realities of the football business. “Everything in this life that I've had to face is against the odds,” he said. It all adds up to a journey unlike any other in his draft class—one that the 21-year-old summarized as he shook his head again and took a sip of Hennessy from a plastic cup printed to resemble a football.
“It’s crazy, bro,” he said. “This is some movie s—.”
