Breaking down the 90 players on the 49ers’ offseason roster in 90 posts (over 90 or so days). Today is QB Kurtis Rourke
The San Francisco 49ers haven’t been shy about churning through backup quarterbacks since moving on from C.J. Beathard and Nick Mullens. That was Brock Purdy for about 60 percent of his rookie season. Since Purdy took over as the starter, we’ve seen Sam Darnold, Brandon Allen, Josh Dobbs, and now Mac Jones.
The Niners drafted a quarterback in the seventh round of the 2025 NFL Draft. Kurtis Rourke will learn from Jones and Purdy during the next two seasons. Rourke won’t be ready for the beginning of training camp after recovering from an ACL injury.
Even if his rookie season will feel more like a redshirt year, the soon-to-be 25-year-old started 45 games during his career. He enters the NFL with plenty of experience and should make for a solid, scout team quarterback who knows where to go with the football in practice and can also help you out in a pinch if there’s an injury to your starter.
Basic Info
Age: 24 (his birthday is 10/22/2000)
Experience: Rookie
Height: 6’4
Weight: 220 pounds
Cap Status
Rourke received a $134,236 signing bonus that’ll be spread out over the next four seasons. His base salary in 2025 is $840,000. That brings Rourke’s cap number in 2025 to $873,559.
A lengthy injury history
Some may have been surprised to see the 49ers select a quarterback, especially one coming off a significant injury.
General Manager John Lynch attended a game in which Rourke played live against Ohio State last season. In that game, Rourke only completed eight of his 18 attempts for 68 yards in a 38-15 loss that wasn’t as close as the score might suggest against the eventual national champion Ohio State Buckeyes.
Lynch said, “I think [Rourke] really displayed his toughness, played a lot of the year on a partially torn ACL. It was a previous ACL that was done in 2022, a re-tear, but toughed it out and played through it, had surgery after the season.”
Rouke spent four seasons at Ohio University before spending his final season in Bloomington. He also suffered a shoulder injury late in the 2020 season. Lynch mentioned the ACL tear that happened late in 2020. Last August, before the 2024 season, Rourke tore the same ACL for the second time, but opted to have surgery once the season ended.
Rourke suffered a thumb injury on his throwing hand. He had midseason surgery on that hand last October and only missed one game after initially being ruled out indefinitely before his “prognosis improved.”
Why Rourke after all that?
Indiana was in the thick of a playoff race. Rourke’s willingness to undergo surgery and play through multiple injuries is a sign of a S-tier competitor willing to do anything to win.
Here’s more from Lynch:
“We took him with the understanding that he’s not going to likely be cleared until training camp, but we felt like there was a lot of talent, a lot of ability. The guy plays the game the right way, and you can’t have enough good quarterbacks.”
And here’s Kyle Shanahan on Rourke:
“Love the size, love how he throws, love how he plays the position, especially watching him this year. I don’t think it was a coincidence how good of a year they had with the type of quarterback they had, and he did it the whole year with a broken finger, a torn ACL, and still was really, really impressive.”
Rourke is a big kid. It’s no surprise that Shanahan gravitated toward a quarterback with sound mechanics and above-average placement and decision-making. Rourke looked like a player who shouldn’t take long getting comfortable learning an NFL offense.
What Rourke lacks in A+ arm strength, he makes up for in creating throwing lanes and finding a way to complete passes with abnormal arm angles. Once he’s healthy, Rourke seems like the perfect practice quarterback and type of player you want in your quarterback room.