Jacksonville Jaguars Wait on Trevor Lawrence, Former CFL QB Nathan Rourke Remains Roster Option
The Jacksonville Jaguars have not had the smoothest of weeks at the quarterback position. In Monday’s loss to the Cincinnati Bengals, quarterback Trevor Lawrence suffered an ankle injury that knocked him out of the game and could sideline him for Sunday’s game against the Cleveland Browns.
Backup quarterback C.J. Beathard finished the game, taking over for Lawrence. He has had problems dealing with a left shoulder injury that has made him limited in practice for most of the week.
That leaves the question of whether former CFL quarterback Nathan Rourke will be activated to the roster. Jaguars coach Doug Pederson is still deciding on whether to bring Rourke up to the active roster.
Former CFL quarterback Nathan Rourke could be activated Sunday depending on the status of injured Jacksonville Jaguars quarterback Trevor Lawrence.
“Nathan’s obviously on practice squad, so you can’t bring him up on an activation or an elevation, he’d have to come to the 53 in order to be your 49th guy like we did for New Orleans,” Pederson told the media Friday. “Today’s a big day for us. We’ve got to get through today and we’ll make those decisions probably before we leave tomorrow.”
The NFL implemented a new rule starting this season where a team can have an emergency third quarterback. This would help in Rourke being active despite NFL teams only being allowed to have 48 active roster spots for the game.
Rourke played two seasons in the CFL for the BC Lions from 2021-22, starting in 11 games. His breakout year was in 2022 where he threw for 3,349 yards and 25 touchdowns to ten interceptions in nine starts. He won the CFL Most Outstanding Canadian award that season.
That helped Rourke land a three-year contract with the Jaguars in January. He’s spent most of the season on the practice squad except mid-October where he was moved to the active roster.
Pederson plans to make a decision of Lawrence and the quarterbacks on Sunday.
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