{"id":438504,"date":"2026-01-28T11:19:16","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T11:19:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/438504\/"},"modified":"2026-01-28T11:19:16","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T11:19:16","slug":"lions-extend-cfl-mop-rourke-through-2028","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/438504\/","title":{"rendered":"Lions extend CFL MOP Rourke through 2028"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Nathan Rourke is staying on the West Coast, as the CFL&#8217;s reigning Most Outstanding Player has agreed to a two-year extension with the BC Lions.<\/p>\n<p>Rourke was scheduled to become a free agent next offseason before signing the extension.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m honoured to continue my lifelong dream as a professional football player with the BC Lions,&#8221; Rourke <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bclions.com\/2026\/01\/27\/rourke-remains-home-through-2028\/?utm_source=twitter&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_campaign=dhtwitter&amp;utm_content=app.dashsocial.com\/bc-lions\/library\/media\/634535645\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">said<\/a> in a statement. &#8220;I&#8217;m fortunate to be part of an organization that believes in me and trusts me to lead both on and off the field. &#8230; This organization has redefined family for me and I&#8217;m excited to keep chasing the goal of bringing a Grey Cup back to the West Coast.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Rourke, 27, is coming off a historic 2025 campaign that saw him join Hall of Famer Russ Jackson as the only Canadian QBs to be named MOP. He passed for a Canadian single-season record 5,290 yards along with 31 touchdowns and a 70.4 completion percentage. The dual-threat pivot also ran for 564 yards &#8211; tops among quarterbacks and eighth in the league overall &#8211; and 10 rushing majors.<\/p>\n<p>The Oakville, Ontario, native was originally drafted by BC second overall in 2020. He briefly left the Lions in 2023 to pursue NFL opportunities before returning in August 2024.<\/p>\n<p>BC went 11-7 last year to finish second in the West Division, but the team was eliminated by Saskatchewan in the West final. The Lions haven&#8217;t played in a Grey Cup game since their most recent win in 2011.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Nathan Rourke is staying on the West Coast, as the CFL&#8217;s reigning Most Outstanding Player has agreed to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":438505,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[49,48,521,522,520,82],"class_list":["post-438504","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\/438504","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=438504"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438504\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/438505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=438504"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=438504"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=438504"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}