Rourke facing uncertain NFL future

When Nathan Rourke decided to give up the security of stardom in the Canadian Football League for a trip into the NFL wilderness in late 2022, it was with the understanding that this might require a lot of patience.

Has it ever.

And with news Monday that the New England Patriots are releasing him before organized team activities (OTAs) have even begun, his future south of the border just got a whole lot murkier.

The Canadian pivot’s release hardly comes as a shock. He was one of five quarterbacks on the Patriots roster, in a group led by recent No. 3 overall draft pick Drake Maye of North Carolina.

New England also has veteran Jacoby Brissett, a free agent signing with 48 NFL starts on his resume and a guaranteed $6.5 million in salary for this season, plus two other recent draft picks – 2022 fourth rounder Bailey Zappe, who has appeared in 14 games for the team, and 2024 sixth rounder Joe Milton out of the University of Tennessee.

It was hard to imagine a situation where there were more obstacles in Rourke’s way than with the Patriots, so getting out of New England might actually be a good thing.

Rourke became a Patriot late last season when New England claimed him from Jacksonville because it needed a quarterback to fill out its roster until season’s end. Given the choice of remaining on the Jaguars practice roster or collecting an NFL paycheque, Rourke took the latter, leaving the team he signed with in January of 2023.

The highlight of Rourke’s time with the Jaguars was his performance in the preseason. With only three quarterbacks on the roster at camp, Rourke saw plenty of playing time behind former No. 1 overall draft pick Trevor Lawrence and backup C.J. Beathard.

Rourke outplayed Beathard, engineering touchdowns on five of the nine drives he completed. But the backup job was never really a competition, and Rourke was released and cleared waivers before joining Jacksonville’s practice squad.

As for what comes next, getting released nine days after the draft, where teams had the chance to load up on available quarterback talent with picks and college free agency, doesn’t do Rourke any favours.

His first stop will be the waiver wire, where 31 other teams will be able to claim him this week. Rourke cleared waivers at cut down time last September, but there is far more room for teams to add players at this time of year, making a claim a realistic possibility.

But should he not be claimed or signed in time for training camp, it would leave him with a dilemma.

All indications are that Rourke remains as focused on the NFL as ever and would take whatever opportunity comes his way. But if he’s not going to be in an NFL training camp this summer, that’s a different story.

Rourke turns 26 later this month and hasn’t thrown a live pass since the preseason last August. It’s hard to think he’d be willing to sit out another 12 months, waiting for the NFL to call, without turning his attention north.

CFL camps open this week, which means teams have built their quarterback depth charts and most of the room under the salary cap has been allocated. It wouldn’t be easy for a team to add him to its roster, but it wouldn’t be impossible either.

Under the current CBA, teams are allowed to pay players for marketing, which is an uncapped resource that is also exempt from the salary cap. While the amounts have to be justifiable, based on the player’s status and appeal, no player would have more value for marketing purposes than Rourke, given his nationality and standing as winner of the CFL’s Most Outstanding Canadian award in 2022.

So it’s safe to think that all nine CFL teams are having a Nathan Rourke conversation this week, just to consider the possibilities should he come north.

The reality for Rourke is that undrafted quarterbacks without NFL playing time on their resumes need a near perfect storm to hit, and the factors involved are mostly well beyond their control.

In Jacksonville, that path was easy to see – Lawrence getting hurt and Beathard being lousy. In New England it was about as clear as trying to see through a windshield in a mud storm.

And now? Who knows?

From the outset, there were always three possibilities when Rourke made his way to the NFL – that he would succeed, that he would fail, or that he would never get the chance to do either.

Right now it appears the latter of those may be his destiny.