The Blind Side tells the story of a real-life NFL player’s formative years and how he overcame certain obstacles to pursue a professional sports career, but with the movie being released the same year as Michael Oher’s NFL rookie season, it doesn’t include any information on what he accomplished in the years that followed. Quinton Aaron leads The Blind Side‘s cast as Michael Oher, with Sandra Bullock playing Leigh Anne Tuohy, Oher’s surrogate mother. Together, the duo takes the audience through the journey of the NFL Star, ending the tale with Aaron’s version of the character beginning his college career.

There’s controversy surrounding The Blind Side, with the real Michael Oher claiming certain elements have been altered that paint his caretakers in a much better light than in reality. While it’s debatable whether the events of The Blind Side are faithful to what actually happened, Oher’s life since the movie’s release has moved away from the realm of show business and into the professional sports arena. In a way, The Blind Side‘s ending leads immediately into the most fruitful period of Oher’s football life, and in a way, it’s much less up for interpretation than the biopic.

Michael Oher Played College Football At Ole Miss Before Being Drafted By The Baltimore Ravens In 2009

Oher spent most of his NFL career in Baltimore

Michael Oher didn’t need to venture far from his new home in Tennessee to play his college football. After gaining a scholarship at the University of Mississippi, Oher’s played on the Offensive Line for the Ole Miss Rebels from 2005 to 2009. Although he began his Rebels career as a Guard, he eventually shifted to Left Tackle. In 2009, at the age of 22, he was drafted by the Baltimore Ravens and he became an NFL player. He spent the majority of his professional playing career in Baltimore, primarily blocking for Quarterback Joe Flacco.

Oher proved to be a very dependable and versatile player for the Ravens. As well as being able to play on both ends of the Offensive Line, he also lined up as a Guard when the team required him to. He shared a roster with other Ravens greats like Ed Reed, and Ray Lewis. After five seasons of donning the team’s signature purple uniform, Oher’s time in Baltimore came to an end in 2013.

Michael Oher Won A Super Bowl With The Ravens In 2013

Oher played Right Tackle in Super Bowl XVLII

The number one goal for any NFL player is to win it all in the sport’s biggest game. In 2013, Michael Oher did just that by helping the Baltimore Ravens narrowly defeat the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl XVLII with a final score of 34-31. The performance earned Oher and the rest of his team a Super Bowl ring after the Ravens’ defense managed to quell a last-minute resurgence from San Francisco’s Colin Kaepernick-led offensive unit. Super Bowl VXLII was the Ravens’ 13th win of the season, after going 10-6 in the regular season and winning three playoff games.

After the additional excitement of Beyoncé’s halftime show and a 35-minute delay due to a power outage, helping the Ravens win their second Super Bowl proved to be the final act from Oher as a Raven before he was released. While he never made it back to the big game, not every NFL player makes it to a Super Bowl, let alone wins one. So, while the extra attention the Offensive Lineman received as a result of The Blind Side could have distracted him from playing to his potential, he actually reached the peak of his career relatively quickly.

Michael Oher’s Final NFL Season Was In 2016 With The Carolina Panthers

Oher spent two seasons as a Panther before retiring from the NFL

Oher’s time with the Baltimore Ravens reaching its conclusion didn’t mean the end of his playing career. After leaving Baltimore, Oher returned to the state where he was taken in by his surrogate family in The Blind Side – Tennessee. He played a single season for the Tennessee Titans in 2014 before also being cut loose. However, he then found another NFL home where he could continue his playing career. Finding new life in 2015, Michael Oher became the go-to Left Tackle for the Carolina Panthers, having one of his best career years and playing in his second Super Bowl.

Unfortunately, Super Bowl 50 ended in a 24-10 loss to Peyton Manning’s Denver Broncos, after a season of Oher blocking for the impressively mobile Cam Newton. The Offensive Lineman’s poor fortune continued into the 2016 season – his second with the Carolina Panthers. After appearing in just a handful of games, he was eventually placed on the Injured Reserved list and then cut before the beginning of the 2017 season. Michael Oher’s NFL career ended with 110 games, all of which he started.

Michael Oher Sued The Tuohy Family In 2023 Over Conservatorship Allegations

The former NFL star claims the Tuohys misled him

The Blind Side was an incredibly profitable movie, making around $300 million on a budget of roughly $30 million. Logically, given that Michael Oher’s formative years were the movie’s subject matter, one would assume that the football star would have experienced enormous financial benefits from the film’s success. NBC News reported that he received roughly $138,000 as a result of The Blind Side‘s box office success. While this is still a significant figure, it begs the question of why it’s so relatively low when compared with the movie’s box office takings.

Michael Oher spoke out in 2023 against the family who took him in, the Tuohys, when he voiced his concerns about being tricked into a conservatorship rather than being officially adopted. The narrative in The Blind Side is that the Tuohys adopted Oher, making him an official part of the family. However, this wasn’t the case. Instead, the Tuohys entered into a conservatorship agreement, which allows someone to manage the affairs and finances of someone else.

Oher’s claims suggest that his new caregivers tricked the future NFL star by telling him the arrangement was essentially the same as adoption, which is why he entered into it. The lawsuit against the Tuohys comes with the allegations that they used Oher’s story to make themselves millionaires while the rising football player missed out on the majority of the money. So, The Blind Side is seemingly a much more rose-tinted version of the inspirational story, and not all was seemingly as it seemed in the real world.

Sources: ESPN, NBC News