{"id":437886,"date":"2026-01-28T04:32:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T04:32:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/437886\/"},"modified":"2026-01-28T04:32:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T04:32:10","slug":"star-quarterback-nathan-rourke-to-stay-with-b-c-lions-through-2028","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/437886\/","title":{"rendered":"Star quarterback Nathan Rourke to stay with B.C. Lions through 2028"},"content":{"rendered":"

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The\u00a0B.C. Lions have locked up their star quarterback, signing Nathan Rourke to an extension through the 2028 season.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The team announced the move Tuesday, with Lions general manager Ryan Rigmaiden saying in a statement that Rourke is the “best player in the league and the face of the CFL.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

The 27-year-old from Victoria is entering the final year of the contract he signed in 2024 after returning from his time in the NFL.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He’s coming off a 2025 campaign where he hit career highs in passing yards (5,290), touchdown passes (31), rushing yards (564) and rushing touchdowns (10).\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"AB.C. Lions quarterback Nathan Rourke spent time in the NFL, but didn’t catch on with any team south of the border. (Darryl Dyck\/The Canadian Press)<\/p>\n

Rourke was named both the league’s most outstanding player and the top Canadian after helping the Lions finish second in the West Division with an 11-7 record.\u00a0<\/p>\n

B.C. edged the Calgary Stampeders in the West semifinal before falling to eventual Grey Cup winners, the Saskatchewan Roughriders, in the division final.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Rourke was originally picked 15th overall by the Lions in the 2020 CFL draft and has tallied 11,174 passing yards with 63 touchdowns over 50 regular-season games.\u00a0<\/p>\n

He headed south in 2023 to pursue an NFL career, spending time with the Jacksonville Jaguars, New England Patriots, New York Giants and Atlanta Falcons before returning to\u00a0B.C. in August 2024.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m honoured to continue my lifelong dream as a professional football player with the\u00a0B.C. Lions,” Rourke said in a statement on Tuesday. <\/p>\n

“I\u2019m fortunate to be part of an organization that believes in me and trusts me to lead both on and off the field.”<\/p>\n

Rigmaiden said the Lions wanted to be proactive in getting the quarterback signed long term.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“Extending him through 2028 puts us in the best possible position to win, and sends the right message to his teammates, the league and\u00a0B.C. Lions fans everywhere,” the GM said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“As Nathan continues to get more comfortable in coach Buck [Pierce’s] offence, we expect to be even more competitive in the future.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Listen to this article Estimated 2 minutes The audio version of this article is generated by AI-based technology.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":437887,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,82],"class_list":["post-437886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cfl","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canadian-football-league","tag-canadianfootballleague","tag-cfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=437886"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/437886\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/437887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=437886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=437886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=437886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}