Canadian QBs Kurtis Rourke, Taylor Elgersma will mark significant milestone this summer in NFL

For the first time ever this summer, National Football League training camps will feature two quarterbacks who were born and raised in Canada.

And while both San Francisco’s Kurtis Rourke and Green Bay’s Taylor Elgersma have a long road ahead of them to playing meaningful downs in the NFL, their arrival in the same season is significant nonetheless.

The breadth of Canadians in the NFL has risen rapidly over the past 25 years, to the point that a Canadian could be found playing at every offensive and defensive position during the 2024 NFL season, save for one: quarterback.

So last summer, TSN’s first NFL Team Canada depth chart came with a striking hole in it.

All of this heightens the significance of Rourke and Elgersma’s arrival this season and the opportunities that await them.

For context, only one quarterback born and raised in this country has ever thrown a pass in an NFL game. Ottawa’s Jesse Palmer attempted 120 passes in eight games with the New York Giants during the 2002 and 2003 seasons, including three starts. (Punter Jon Ryan threw a touchdown in a playoff game for the Seattle Seahawks but he wasn’t playing quarterback.)

Nathan Rourke, Kurtis’s older brother, impressed in pre-season games with Jacksonville at the start of the 2023 season but wasn’t able to translate that into a legitimate opportunity for himself before returning to the CFL last fall.

Beyond that you’ve got to go back to the 1980s when a trio of U Sports quarterbacks (then known as CIAU) – Jamie Bone, Dan Feraday and Steve Samways – earned their way into training camps and then quickly out of the league. Former Acadia quarterback Larry Jusdanis is the only U Sports quarterback ever invited to the NFL Combine, but his performance at the 1995 event underwhelmed and he went undrafted and unsigned.

But like so much when it comes to Canadians in the NFL, things are changing, and Rourke and Elgersma are the evidence.

Rourke’s path took him from high school in Oakville, Ont., to the NCAA, where he attended the universities of Ohio and Indiana, setting school records for the Bobcats and then leading the Hoosiers to their first berth in the College Football Playoff last fall.

Elgersma of London, Ont. stayed closer to home, attending Wilfrid Laurier University. He led the Golden Hawks through an undefeated 2024 season before losing in the Vanier Cup last November, picking up the Hec Creighton Award as the country’s top player in the process.

Though Rourke was on the NFL’s radar before the start of last season, he needed a stellar campaign at Indiana to earn a seventh-round selection by the 49ers, where he slots in behind starter Brock Purdy and backup Mac Jones, the former first-round pick of the Patriots.

Elgersma, meanwhile, parlayed his 2024 season, 6-foot-5 frame, and big arm into off-season opportunities at the Senior Bowl, the top college all-star game for prospective pros, and the College Gridiron Showcase, an event held in Texas where he got to measure himself against his American peers.

It was enough to impress the Packers, who brought him in for a private visit leading up to the NFL Draft and then signed him after he attended a Green Bay mini-camp in early June.

The path to playing in the NFL and the challenges ahead will be different for each player.

By moving from Ohio in the Mid-American Conference to Indiana in the Big 10 last season, Rourke proved he could play with the best of college football, efficiently racking up more than 3,000 yards passing, completing 69.4 per cent of his throws, leading the Big 10 in yards per pass and per attempt, and throwing 29 touchdown passes against just five interceptions.

The only two performances in which he struggled came against Ohio State and Notre Dame, two of college football’s best defences, and the only teams to beat Indiana all season.

Most importantly, he showed he could compete at the highest level of college football, overcoming questions that existed before he transferred from Ohio to Indiana for his final season.

Elgersma, meanwhile, is attempting to do what no quarterback has ever accomplished – going from U Sports football to the NFL.

The challenges in that leap are obvious, starting with the absence of NFL-calibre competition faced in Canadian university football and accentuated by the need to adapt to the different game of four-down football.

And while Elgersma’s size and arm strength may be NFL calibre, he’ll be expected to show progress over the summer to justify a place on the Packers practice roster next fall, where he can continue his development.

He’s likely years away from seeing the field, but at 23 years of age, he’s got loads of time.

Rourke, meanwhile, shouldn’t have much pressure on him this summer as he continues to recover from his post-season ACL surgery in early January, an injury which he played through last season.

Purdy, a seventh-round pick himself, isn’t going anywhere and just signed one of the richest contracts in NFL history. Jones, meanwhile, who signed a two-year deal this past off-season and is on his third team in three seasons, could see some stiff competition from Rourke by next summer.

Two players who grew up on fields in Canada, competing among the best in the world this summer at the game’s glamour position. And the void space on the Team Canada NFL depth chart is void no more.

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