After much speculation, Oakville's Nathan Rourke signed his first-ever National Football League (NFL) contract on Sunday, signing with the Jacksonville Jaguars.
According to ESPN's Adam Schefter, Rourke had 12 NFL teams interested in him.
Those other teams included: Cleveland, the New York Giants, Kansas City, Cincinnati, L.A. Chargers, Las Vegas, Minnesota, Denver, Indianapolis, Tampa Bay and Arizona.
But Rourke ultimately felt that the Jaguars were the best option.
"Jacksonville was one of the teams that was highest on our radar from the get-go," said Rourke to Corey Warren of TSN. "They seemed to be the most impressed in what I did in the CFL, and they were really keen on me from the beginning."
Rourke also spoke on the opportunity to work with the Jaguars staff.
"Just the prospect of being able to potentially work with Coach (Doug) Petterson and learn from someone who has established himself as someone who is very good with quarterbacks, especially young ones, and seeing the development of Trevor Lawrence this year has been cool to watch and I wanted to be a part of that."
Now, what does all of this mean?
The first thing that needs to be addressed is that this does not mean that Rourke has 100% made the 53-man roster of next year's Jacksonville Jaguars.
After all, most people reference the NFL to stand for "Not For Long."
What this likely means is Rourke now has the chance that he has always dreamed of to fight for a job in the NFL.
The Jaguars already have an elite starting quarterback in former Heisman Trophy winner Trevor Lawrence who led the Jaguars to the third-largest comeback in NFL playoff history on Saturday with their 31-30 win over the Los Angeles Chargers.
So what Rourke will be doing is fighting for a chance to be Lawrence’s backup quarterback for the 2023 season. Rourke will be fighting for this job, along with some other quarterbacks.
If he doesn't secure the position of backup quarterback, that may not be the end for him in Jacksonville. Rourke may have the chance to be a practice squad quarterback for the team.
A practice squad QB only practices with the team but may have the opportunity to play in a real game if they are elevated to the active roster.
The job of a practice squad QB is to help prepare the active roster for the game. The stressful part about being on the practice squad is that you are very expendable and can be cut at any time.
Rourke has lots of time to prepare for this journey, during which he needs to get better and better to earn a spot on the Jaguars' active roster.
Congratulations Nathan!