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(PHOTO: Bob Self/Florida Times-Union / USA TODAY NETWORK) There’s been a lot of discussion in recent days about the New England Patriots potentially trading back in the upcoming draft, with some wondering if it makes sense to see what kind of haul they could get with the #3 overall pick.
The first round of free agency certainly didn’t go as well as some hoped. While the Patriots had plenty of cash and a desire to improve, they struggled to attract high-profile players. Most seemingly spurned the Patriots in favor of what they likely felt were more favorable situations, with the negotiations with Calvin Ridley sitting as a reminder that there are times where a player won’t always follow the money.
As a result, it’s still a team with plenty of holes to fill. They clearly still have needs at offensive tackle. They still need to find an impact receiver. They also still obviously need to figure things out at quarterback.
That leaves Jerod Mayo’s football team with a difficult decision. They can either stick to the plan and take a quarterback next month or they can trade down with another desperate team like the Vikings or Giants for the sake of loading up on draft picks. The latter would at least give them a chance to address more areas of need this year, providing them with a much stronger foundation heading into next offseason.
Unfortunately, that would also mean potentially forgoing the likes of Jayden Daniels, Drake Maye, or J.J. McCarthy, leaving them with Jacoby Brissett for 2024 and without a clear long-term answer at quarterback heading into next season.
However, what if the Patriots already have a potential solution sitting on their roster?
The decision to claim former CFL quarterback Nathan Rourke off of waivers back in mid December could be one of the final moves by Bill Belichick that may provide an answer. Rourke, who walked away from that league at the top of his game at the end of the 2022 season in pursuit of an opportunity in the NFL, started that journey in Jacksonville before landing in New England.
That surprising turn of events for Rourke came toward the end of 2023 when the Patriots jumped at the opportunity after his name popped up in the waiver wire. With Mac Jones and Bailey Zappe each struggling, the club made the decision to snatch him away from the Jaguars and bring him to Foxboro, likely hoping to finally add a quality player to their quarterback room.
Rourke’s arrival, at the time, certainly flew under the radar. It garnered little attention here, essentially amounting to a normal league transaction that simply added depth to a position that was definitely a mess at that point in the season.
On the surface, it seemed like a smart move and his resume during his short time in the league was impressive. Rourke had a solid preseason in Jacksonville, with the former B.C. Lions quarterback holding his own against veteran backup C.J. Beathard. Overall, Rourke completed 23-of-35 (65.7%) for 348 yards, with a passing touchdown along with one rushing touchdown, finishing with the highest yards per attempt total that preseason for the Jaguars by a significant margin compared to his teammates at 9.9 (Lawrence was 8.0, Beathard was 8.2).
However, Beathard seemed to be the player favored by head coach Doug Pederson, with Pederson eliminating any notion of a competition for the backup role back in August, despite the push Rourke made that preseason. That left Rourke disappointed, as the opportunity to compete to be the backup was one of the big reasons that out of the 12 teams he worked out for, Jacksonville had been his top choice. It also left Rourke at the bottom of the depth chart, which ultimately set up his departure.
What was notable following the move was the reaction in Jacksonville. After a preseason that saw Rourke pull off one of the most impressive touchdown throws in recent memory, his loss left many people extremely disappointed. Rourke had seemingly built up a small contingent of fans who believed he should have possibly been the one backing up Lawrence instead of Beathard, with the Jaguars’ practice of only carrying two quarterbacks on the active roster ultimately costing them.
Some of them even wondered if maybe Rourke could one day be a guy to possibly replace Lawrence, with some frustrated after seeing the quarterback’s touchdown total drop and his interception total nearly double as the Jaguars again finished 9-8 but missed the postseason.
For now, they’ll never know. Rourke is instead a Patriot, and he’s been focused on getting ready for the 2024 season.
“Yeah, I’m honored,” said Rourke back in December in his first meeting with the media. “It’s a great organization. I have a lot of respect for this league and obviously a lot of respect for Coach Belichick and Coach O’Brien. It’s been pretty cool to be here so far.”
Rourke also displayed some quiet confidence after arriving at Gillette Stadium, showing a little of that when reporters asked what he brought to the table with his new team.
“I’m not big on tooting my own horn,” said Rourke, smiling. “So you’ll just have to see.”
As he did in Jacksonville, Rourke worked hard behind the scenes after joining the Patriots. The newcomer quietly moved up the ranks before emerging as the backup quarterback behind Bailey Zappe in Week 18, which left Jones as the emergency quarterback in their final game.
Unfortunately, he ran out of time to show fans in New England anything, albeit it’s probably for the best. By then, their best receiver, Kendrick Bourne, was lost for the season, as was top tight end Hunter Henry, leaving them badly depleted.
In the finale, it was DeVante Parker, Demario Douglas, Mike Gesicki, and Pharaoh Brown as pass catchers, as Bailey Zappe completed just 12-of-30 for 88 yards and 2 interceptions during New England’s 17-3 loss to the Jets at Gillette Stadium. Belichick clearly felt there was no point having Rourke get knocked around, and instead allowed him to continue learning to finish out the year.
“Yeah, Nathan had a good week of practice,” said Belichick after the loss. “So we activated him for the second spot.”
Obviously, the team has since parted ways with Belichick, but the club did pick up Rourke’s exclusive rights free agent tender this offseason, which extended his run as a Patriot into at least next fall.
Justin Dunk of 3DownNation.com has covered Rourke’s journey extensively and offered some insight in an interview with PatsFans.com. While Dunk didn’t want to necessarily compare him to any of the other quarterbacks in the NFL, he did want to make it clear that the play everyone saw with the Jaguars in the preseason, where Rourke broke away from several defenders before tossing an incredible touchdown, wasn’t exactly an anomaly.
In fact, Dunk said that making the most of things when things break down has actually been one of Rourke’s strengths over the course of his career.
“I kind of hesitate to compare him to guys down there because people will say, ‘You know, you’re a Canadian guy kind of keeping up for Nathan Rourke,” said Dunk. “I just think if you look at his career and his mentality, and I’ll give you an example. So, the team that he was up with in the CFL, the B.C. Lions, where he really had that star year, if you go back and look at a bunch of that film, you’ll see, not exactly the same play that he made in the preseason there against Dallas, but some of those plays with more regularity, throwing the ball down the field, him using his legs, him scrambling out of things.”
Rourke’s a player who is well-respected back in Canada, and he has a lot of people believing he can pick up where he left off in his final season and succeed in the NFL. In his final CFL campaign, Rourke completed 255-of-324 for 3349 yards along with 25 touchdowns and 10 interceptions. He also carried 39 times for 304 yards while scoring 7 touchdowns in 2022 for the B.C. Lions.
Those numbers were among the best in the league that season, and that came despite the fact Rourke missed a significant amount of time due to a foot injury, which ultimately required surgery.
Looking at Rourke’s CFL film, Dunk isn’t lying when it comes to his ability to get away from pressure. The former Lions quarterback has incredible balance, often not going down on first contact while keeping his eyes downfield.
There are a surprising number of instances over the course of his career where opponents have seemingly had Rourke wrapped up, yet he’s been able to power out of their grasp and move up field and make a play, where guys trying to arm tackle him just isn’t enough.
The 6’2″, 210-pound Rourke is absolutely stronger than he appears, with exceptional lower-body strength and escapability, which is how he’s been able to improvise when things break down.
He’s also incredibly tough and doesn’t fear the rush. Rourke had multiple examples where even with a player bearing down on him, he still stood in and delivered the football. One of those moments happened where Rourke made an incredible play during a postseason win over Calgary late in the second quarter, where he took a massive shot on a scoring strike to Alexander Hollins.
With pressure coming from the inside, Rourke stood in the pocket and delivered an unbelievable throw as he was hit, with Hollins hauling in what ended up being a perfectly thrown ball in the right corner of the end zone for the score. That play put the Lions on top 13-6 and set the tone en route to a 30-16 semi-final win over the Stampeders.
Dunk then went on to add that knowing how focused Rourke is about finding a role in the NFL, the Lions have lost hope that he’ll be back and believe he’ll see things through as he continues to battle for a starting role somewhere. Dunk also believes that knowing Rourke’s mentality, he believes that if he gets his shot to prove he belongs, he’s going to do everything he can to take advantage of it.
“I think the real key there from B.C.’s standpoint is they were probably hoping that Nathan was going to come back north of the border,” said Dunk. “But they’ve gone ahead and signed Vernon Adams Jr. to be their franchise quarterback for the next three years and they essentially said [back on March 19th], ‘We think with Nathan’s mentality, that he might never be back here.’ So I think that has showed a lot of people in the CFL that the Lions feel strongly that he’ll be down there for a while.”
“Every step along the way, he’s been successful,” said Dunk. “So he’s worked along the way to kind of prove doubters wrong and I do think that if he gets that opportunity in the NFL, that he’s going to be prepared. I don’t want to say he’s going to be a long-time starter there because he’s going to want to prove it.”
So far this offseason, Rourke has been away from Foxboro, but he’s already preparing to push hard to make a case for himself here in New England.
After getting married about six months ago, Rourke and his wife, Emily, took some time when the season ended to finally enjoy a honeymoon.
However, he’s now back in Canada working with throwing coach Rob Williams of Sport Core Performance, who he’s worked with for the last three years.
The two have spent this week working together, and Rourke is expected to continue that work through next week. They’ve built a solid relationship, with Williams working with Rourke since his college days as he worked on improving his accuracy.
That work paid off, as Rourke improved during his time at Ohio and then got better when he reached the CFL, finishing with a record-setting 78.7% completion rate in 2022.
Williams, who has also worked with other notable young players, including Tennessee’s Will Levis, said in an interview with PatsFans.com that Rourke is coming off a strong first season and he’s grown quite a bit since he started training.
“He’s a good athlete,” said Williams of Rourke. “He’s a natural mover, which is why I think a lot of his numbers at Ohio were on the athleticism side of things, as a dual threat. But his passing completion percentage and everything just weren’t where they needed to be, and that was really the area that he and I, right from the start, we started focusing on. Just optimizing the efficiency of throwing. For him, he’ll be the first to admit he wasn’t a very efficient thrower.”
“And with efficiency comes accuracy and velocity and stuff like that. So when you watch him throw the football now, after having just spent the last two and a half hours out on the field with him with – we’ve got another CFL quarterback that’s getting some NFL looks, he was out there and another University quarterback that played at a pretty high level nationally in Canada – and just to see the way Nathan throws a football now, even compared to these other two guys, that’s the big thing now. ”
One key area that Rourke has spent a lot of time working on is improving both his velocity and strength, which Williams explained has seen him experience tremendous growth.
He’s become a much more polished player, improving not only his accuracy, but also his touch on “trajectory balls,” which Williams said can be difficult for young quarterbacks to master. However, he emphasized it’s an important skill not just in the CFL, but more so in the NFL, and it’s something Rourke has gotten really good at.
“When I first started with Nathan, it was sort of around Christmas, about three and a half years ago, and one of the things that was, I guess I’ll call it sort of a weakness in his game, was on trajectory balls,” said Williams. “The ball didn’t turn over consistently, and so he’d obviously be accurate, and he could throw the ball far even then when we got started, but the ball would often tail a little bit or sort of come in flat rather than turning over and coming in nose down.”
“I just refer to it as drilling down into the receiver’s hands, which makes it a really easy ball to catch when it turns over and drops in. It was something where that wasn’t natural for him, and it was a function of the way he’d been taught to throw trajectory balls. So it didn’t lend itself to the ball naturally just turning over in an arc and going up nose up and turning over at the top and coming in nose down. That was one of the very, very first things that we sort of really deconstructed was his approach to throwing a ball with trajectory, what he had been taught, and then relearning that.”
Williams explained that this area is tough for many players, especially since it’s either taught or they try various things on their own to get the proper touch on the ball.
He said after putting in the work, it’s something Rourke now does naturally, which Williams emphasized is a throw that is important to have in a QB’s arsenal, especially in the NFL.
“A lot of times guys, when they learn to throw trajectory balls, they’re taught to sort of throw – what I refer to as throw to the ball rather than through the ball – so they change the way that they throw the ball the minute they try to put touch on it,” explained Williams. “And so they effectively dart it up in the air – they throw to it – and then sort of stop their arm and try to push the ball up into the air thinking that’s what’s going to put touch on it.”
“But that creates a ball that tails and doesn’t turn over. So learning how to create a trajectory ball that just automatically, 100% of the time, turns over and comes in nose down, we needed it at the time for the CFL, but even more so now in the NFL.”
“To be able to have a ball that turns over a defender and drops into a receiver just automatically, it’s nice to hear from him that that’s sort of a natural skill – I wouldn’t call it natural – but a learned skill that he has now that’s automatic.”
One thing that’s impressive is how much Rourke’s improved his arm strength. Unlike a rookie coming out of college, Rourke is seemingly closer to a finished product physically compared to some of the younger players, but it didn’t happen overnight.
Williams said that when Rourke first arrived, his overall distance wasn’t at the level he wanted it to be. However, after a lot of work it improved, with the young quarterback making significant progress after just one offseason.
Three years later, it’s a completely different story. Williams, who has been working with players for over 20-years, explained that what he’s seen from Rourke is unusual and he still often finds himself shaking his head.
“When he first got to me out of Ohio, I think he was throwing … he was maxed out at about, I think it was 56 yards or something like that,” said Williams. “And right away in that first offseason we got him up, and we hit around 62. We had to do all the right things to get together and get the ball to 62.”
“We were just out launching some balls today, and he sent one, and I was standing next to him when he released it, and immediately I was like, ‘OK, wait, wait, wait,’ I knew where I started, the field’s lined, I went down to the far end, and I confirmed with the receiver, ‘OK, where did you catch that ball?’ and it was about a 67-yard ball.”
“It wasn’t really, ‘Hey, we’re going for, how far can you throw the ball?’ It was, we were in the process of doing a roll-out drill where he pulls-up, double-hitch, and send-it. And I was just like, that’s crazy.”
“So to see that he’s now breaking 65, and he did another one that was 65,66. I said, ‘OK, we’re consistently now – this isn’t standing still – but when we roll into it and hitch and send it, if we can break 65, 66, 67 yards, there really aren’t very many guys that can do that. Even the bigger guys. And for me, that’s just how efficient he’s become.”
Coming off his first season where he made some noise and got his foot in the door, the fact the Patriots decided to bring Rourke back next season opens things up for him to build on where he finished last year.
The club clearly wants to see more from him, and it sounds like when he returns, this work will likely pay dividends.
Williams said that the quarterback is in good spirits and he’s also healthy. After watching his recent work, it’s obvious the foot injury from his playing days in Canada is well behind him, and he added that the experience from Rourke’s first year in the NFL has already been valuable. Now he’s simply ready to hopefully take another step forward.
“Really good,” said Williams when asked about how Rourke was feeling heading into next season. “I mean, just even the experience of what he had last year, and sort of physically, he is in great shape and feeling good and throwing the ball better than ever.”
“He was rehabbed from that foot surgery, but now that’s so gone in the past. On the physical side of it, it’s kind of like the old Nate as far as the athleticism and the movement, but now we’ve got three years of throwing mechanics work, which is kind of almost the new Nate.”
“And then having the experience with a couple of teams just as far as getting the NFL experience, different locker rooms, different teams, different playbooks, and everything. I think he’s just really feeling like, ‘All the boxes are checked. Let’s go.’”
For now, he remains a name that’s not talked about much here in New England, and Williams is surprised that there hasn’t been any chatter, especially given everything he’s seen.
“It’s interesting to me, isn’t it?” said Williams. “Those of us who know him and have worked with him or been around and watched how he dominated in the CFL, and what he did in the offseason there, it’s a little quiet.”
For a team with so many needs and a big decision still to be made ahead of the draft, we’ll see if Rourke can potentially make a little noise next month when players return on April 1st for voluntary workouts.
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Trade the 3rd pick, get o-linemen and receivers and see what he’s got. We don’t need to ruin any more QBs with a poor line and no open receiver to throw to.
I’m sad for Rourke cuz I don’t think they’ll give him a REAL chance
Watch him win