The San Francisco 49ers knew they would have to be patient with the development of their seventh-round quarterback in last year’s draft.
Kurtis Rourke, a native of Kitchener, Ont. and brother of CFL superstar Nathan Rourke, is finally healthy and getting the chance to show off what he can do in rookie camp with the 49ers in May.
Rourke slid to the seventh round of the 2025 NFL Draft after playing through a torn ACL in his final year at Indiana University and having surgery to repair the injury in January of 2025. He finished ninth in Heisman Trophy voting in his final year, and led the team to the CFP for the first time in program hsitory.
His early performance at rookie camp - he is one of the few second-year players invited after he was not activated to the 53-man roster last year while rehabbing surgery on his knee - has impressed the coaches.
“Love the arm talent. He’s a heck of a thrower,” offensive coordinator Klay Kubiak said of Rourke, per Vic Tafur of The Athletic. “He’s big, he’s strong, he can spin it … We have high hopes for him. We’re excited for him as a player.”
Rourke is competing to be the No. 3 quarterback out of training camp, with the 49ers entering the 2026 campaign with Brock Purdy leading and Mac Jones at the No. 2 after trade talks never materialized in the off-season.
“This is a great offence, and being able to run it fully, it takes a lot,” Rourke said after practice on Wednesday. “I just wanted to learn as much as I could, learn from Brock and Mac.”
Jones is expected to depart in free agency after this season, which means Rourke could be next in line for a backup role if he can beat Adrian Martinez for the No. 3 spot this year.
Rourke has been working with Canadian QB kinesiologist Rob Williams of QBMotion, per Tafur. Rourke and Williams have been working together since before Rourke joined the Ohio Bobcats of NCAA.
“It’s been mostly getting the footwork down, trying to get a wider base and be able to hit a variety of throws,” Rourke said. “Working on a lot of under-center drops as well, stuff that I didn’t do in college.”
In an interview over the phone with Tafur, Williams described what makes Rourke strong and where the 26-year-old signal caller still has room to improve.
“Kurtis is a big body with long levers, and he’s always been an arm thrower, very much sort of an old school, linear arm thrower,” Williams said. “My approach is just to say that’s great and it’s obviously working for you, but we can be a little more efficient if we can get the rest of the body to help accelerate and propel the arm.”
“His ceiling is very, very high,” Williams added.
When Rourke was drafted a year ago, 49ers general manager John Lynch told reporters that the team did not plan to take a quarterback there, but they were impressed by Rourke’s arm and his ability to play through a serious injury. Head coach Kyle Shanahan told reporters he loved Rourke’s size and how he throws the ball.
The 49ers struck gold in the seventh round with a quarterback recently, as Purdy was taken with the final pick in the 2022 NFL draft and recently signed a five-year, $265 million contract after leading the team to an unexpected Super Bowl berth in his first full year as a starter and finishing fourth in MVP voting in 2023.
While a similar path for Rourke may seem unrealistic, he’s confident that this is the right place to develop.
“This staff developed [Purdy] into one of the best quarterbacks in the league, and it’s a great path to follow,” Rourke said.
He’s also hoping that watching Purdy and Jones in practice during his rookie campaign is something he can use to his advantage moving forward.
“[Purdy and Jones] put so much thought and detail into everything, to make sure that every single play they knew the details of everything, where our feet are, what coverage it’s good against … all that. I saw what it takes to succeed at a high level like they did.”
Rourke is looking to be the first Canadian quarterback to play in an NFL game since Jesse Palmer in the final game of the 2003 season with the New York Giants. A strong rookie camp performance can be the springboard to brighter things for Rourke in the NFL.
