Ravens guard John Urschel is living big in a tiny car

BALTIMORE -- John Urschel is widely known for being the smartest player on the Baltimore Ravens. That's what makes his choice in cars even more confounding to his teammates.

Urschel proudly drives a used 2013 Nissan Versa at a time when most athletes buy supersized pickups and luxurious sports utility vehicles. The 6-foot-3, 305-pound guard loves his compact car so much that he tweeted a picture of it between his teammates' behemoth rides on Monday, and it was shared on social media more than 1,500 times in less than seven hours.

"I don't think you understand that I'm living the dream," Urschel said. "I'm driving my dream car."

Urschel's car was his gift to himself when he was drafted by the Ravens in the fifth round of the 2014 draft. He purchased the Versa, which had 30,000 miles on it, for $9,000 (which amounts to 6 percent of his $144,560 signing bonus).

"This is a good deal," he said exuberantly.

Urschel certainly knows his numbers. He's a math whiz who has a master's degree in mathematics and has had numerous papers published in journals, including his latest one, "A Cascadic Multigrid Algorithm for Computing the Fiedler Vector of Graph Laplacians."

His teammates also know he tends to be more economical than extravagant. He recently mentioned that he could live on $25,000 a year.

Center Jeremy Zuttah jokes with Urschel, saying he understands Urschel's frugality but he believes the tiny car is a hazard. Zuttah even looked up the safety ratings.

"It's great on gas. It's surprisingly spacious," Urschel said. "And you know what the best feeling is? You're driving into a parking deck, it's near full and you're on the first level and there is that space that everyone has passed because they said, 'No, we can't park in there.' And I take my Versa and I just go right in there. I'm on the first level, parking lot full and everyone else is parking on the upper deck where the car is getting hot. I'm not even taking the stairs."

So, how many offensive lineman can it fit?

"It only needs to fit one," Urschel said with a smile.