Remembering Orenthial James Brigance

There are losses that hit a franchise, and there are losses that hit a city. Today, Baltimore absorbed both.

O.J. Brigance passed away today at the age of 56, nineteen years after doctors told him that ALS would take far less time than that to claim him. Anyone who ever spent five minutes with O.J. could have told those doctors they were underestimating the man. Everyone always did, right up until the moment he proved them wrong.

I keep coming back to a simple truth as I write this: no one — not Ray, not Ed, not J.O., not anyone who has ever pulled on the purple and black — embodied what it means to be a Baltimore Raven more completely than Orenthial James Brigance. And unlike the rest of them, O.J. did it for two franchises in this town.

Baltimore’s Bridge

Before there were Ravens, there were Stallions. And before Baltimore ever hoisted a Lombardi, O.J. Brigance helped this football-starved city lift the Grey Cup in 1995, starring at linebacker for a CFL team that gave Baltimore its heartbeat back after the Colts left in the dead of night. When the Stallions faded into history and the Ravens arrived, O.J. eventually came home again — making him the only man to play for both of Baltimore’s modern professional football franchises, and the only player ever to win a CFL championship and a Super Bowl for the same city.

Think about that. In a town that measures loyalty in generations, O.J. was our bridge. He connected the wound of 1984 to the glory of 2000. He was Baltimore football, in every era that mattered.

And when the confetti fell in Tampa on January 28, 2001, it was fitting — poetic, really — that the very first tackle of Super Bowl XXXV belonged to No. 57. Screaming down the field on the opening kickoff, O.J. dropped the Giants’ returner and set the tone for the most dominant defensive performance in Super Bowl history. He finished that championship season second on the team in special teams tackles and led the club in the postseason. The stars got the headlines. O.J. got there first.

The Fight of His Life

In May of 2007, three years into his second act as the Ravens’ director of player development, O.J. was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis — Lou Gehrig’s disease. The cruelest of diagnoses for any man, crueler still for one whose life had been built on movement, on speed, on the violent poetry of covering a kickoff.

Most of us, hearing that news, would have retreated. Not O.J. He leaned in.

He kept coming to work. Through the wheelchair. Through the loss of his voice, replaced by a communication device he operated with his eyes. Through every indignity that disease could throw at him, O.J. showed up at the Under Armour Performance Center and did his job — which, officially, was player engagement, but which in truth was something much bigger. He was the conscience of the building. The compass. The heartbeat of The Castle.

Ask Justin Tucker, who as a struggling second-year kicker in 2013 received an encouraging email from O.J. after missing two field goals in Cleveland — a note Tucker kept pinned in his inbox for the next decade, a note that preceded 33 straight makes. Ask anyone from that 2012 team about the moment in the Foxborough locker room, after the AFC Championship, when a euphoric room full of grown men fell instantly silent so O.J. could speak through his machine. “You are my Mighty Men,” he told them. Two weeks later, they were world champions again. John Harbaugh has said, more than once, that team drew its strength from the strongest man in the building — the one who could no longer walk.

I’ll never forget this O.J Brigance moment. pic.twitter.com/Ky4BfUESE8

— Nic Mason (@British_Raven19) August 17, 2026

Jeff Zrebiec of The Athletic once noted that only five percent of ALS patients live twenty years past diagnosis, and he called O.J. one of the pillars of the entire organization. Both facts tell the same story. O.J. didn’t just survive longer than almost anyone with this disease. He lived louder than most of us ever will without it.

A City’s Champion, Twice Over

O.J.’s fight was never only his own. Shortly after his diagnosis, he and his beloved wife Chanda founded the Brigance Brigade Foundation, which has spent nearly two decades equipping, encouraging and empowering Marylanders living with ALS — funding equipment, support services and resources for families staring down the same diagnosis. He raised money. He raised awareness. He testified in Annapolis. He accepted the George Halas Award and the NCAA Inspiration Award not as trophies but as platforms, always turning the spotlight away from himself and toward the cause.

We never saw him bitter. Not once. Not ever. And nobody said it better today than General Manager Eric DeCosta:

“O.J. inspired us with humility, faithfulness, determination, competitiveness and love for humankind. We never once saw O.J. angry or frustrated by his disease. Instead, we all witnessed a hero who influenced so many people through his unwavering optimism and grit. O.J. Brigance is the definition of what it means to live like a Raven.”

The definition. Not an example. The definition.

The Last Word

Owner Steve Bisciotti called this a tremendously sad day for Baltimore, and it is. Ozzie Newsome, a man who chooses words the way he once chose draft picks, said he was at a loss for them. Brian Billick called him a special soul. John Harbaugh called him a hero and said he looks forward to seeing his friend again in heaven someday.

As for me, I type this article with tears in my eyes because we all lost someone incredibly special today. He was an angel on Earth, a gift from God, who treasured each day, opting not to allow his insidious disease to affect his mind or his heart. He unknowingly reminded me how ridiculous I could be by allowing a Ravens loss to ruin my Sunday while he sat in his chair, motionless, communicating only with his eyes, delivering messages rich in wisdom, faith and uncommon understanding.

For nineteen years, he made the first tackle every single morning — against an opponent none of us can outrun forever — and he did it with a smile that could light up One Winning Drive.

Every. Single. Day.

Rest easy, No. 57. You were, and always will be, Baltimore’s Mighty Man.

Our hearts are with Chanda and the entire Brigance family, and with everyone whose life O.J. touched — which, in this town, is just about all of us.

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Source: https://russellstreetreport.com/2026/08/17/lombardis-way/oj-brigance/