Watch: 49ers TE George Kittle moving well at TEU amid recovery “Early signs from Nashville suggest Kittle is making strong progress toward that goal. Multiple videos circulating on social media Tuesday showed the 49ers star moving fluidly during on-field sessions.” 49ers considering moving practice site from current Levi’s Stadium location (paywall) “Such a change does not appear imminent. Any move is being considered as a long-term possibility.” 49ers 90-in-90: Will Kurtis Rourke show he has enough to be QB2 down the line? “On the field, Rourke is the definition of a Kyle Shanahan quarterback. He has clean mechanics, knows where to go with the ball, and can quickly decipher what the defense is doing underneath to get the ball out on time. Rourke won’t wow you with a big arm. The velocity goes down on deeper passes. As you’d expect from a quarterback with two serious knee injuries, Rourke also isn’t the most fleet of foot. He’s closer to Mac Jones than Brock Purdy when it comes to pocket movement and manipulation.”
If you’ve been on the internet in the past 24-48 hours, you know there’s been talk that the San Francisco 49ers could still trade Mac Jones . But that would only happen if Kurtis Rourke can show the team that he has what it takes to be Brock Purdy ’s backup. Rourke fell to the seventh round of the 2025 NFL Draft after an ACL injury. He has the size at 6’4″, 220 pounds. He was a 6th-year senior who started 45 games. Unfortunately, the 2024 ACL injury wasn’t Rourke’s only one. He also tore his ACL late in 2022 and suffered a shoulder injury way back in 2020 before he transferred to Indiana. On the field, Rourke is the definition of a Kyle Shanahan quarterback. He has clean mechanics, knows where to go with the ball, and can quickly decipher what the defense is doing underneath to get the ball out on time. Rourke won’t wow you with a big arm. The velocity goes down on deeper passes. As you’d expect from a quarterback with two serious knee injuries, Rourke also isn’t the most fleet of foot. He’s closer to Mac Jones than Brock Purdy when it comes to pocket movement and manipulation. But the 49ers aren’t asking Rourke to start. They need a reliable decision-maker who can “win in a pinch” if called upon. Is that Rourke? He’ll need to prove it in training camp. Age: 25 Experience: 1 accrued season Height: 6’4 Weight: 220 pounds Rourke is under contract through the 2028 season. His cap number in 2026 is under $1 million. His contract over the next three years likely contributes to the 49ers’ willingness to want him as a backup. In May, offensive coordinator Klay Kubiak had this to say about Rourke: “I got to see him, I think it was a couple weeks, he was able to practice and loved the arm talent. He’s a heck of a thrower. He’s big, he’s strong. He can stand in there and make every throw on the field. And we saw that from him when he was able to be on the field. Super bright guy, absorbs our playbook and our offense really well. He hasn’t missed a beat on that, and I’m excited to go see him out there and just put it all together and get reps with our guys, consistency, stack days, and just see how he gets better. We have high hopes for him, but I’m just excited about him as a player.” John Lynch and Kyle Shanahan said all of the right things about Rourke in the past. Lynch loved Rourke’s toughness after playing through an injury as a senior. The team didn’t draft a quarterback this past season because of how they feel about Rourke Shanahan brought up Rourke’s size, how he throws, and said, “I love how he plays the position.” Rourke playing as much as he did in the collegiate ranks is a sign of a mature quarterback who has been in several hostile situations. Maybe he’s shown a level of calm during limited practice reps that makes him appealing. Shanahan mentioning Rourke’s size first is noteworthy. With that frame, there has to be more upside than what was in a seventh-round pick. It wouldn’t be surprising to see Rourke develop a stronger arm than he showed in college. Rourke will have plenty of opportunities to shine during the preseason. If he looks like he belongs, that could give the Niners enough confidence to move Mac Jones when other teams come calling. Rourke’s play isn’t just for a Jones trade. The 49ers will need to decide whether they re-sign Jones if no move is made after this season is over
Mac Jones played well enough in the eight games he started for the 49ers last season that he would have had a chance to start for another team if he had been a free agent this year. But Jones is heading into the second year of his two-year contract, which means he remains Brock Purdy’s backup. Unless the 49ers trade him, which might still be possible. 49ers General Manager John Lynch indicated at the start of the offseason that Jones wouldn’t be traded unless the 49ers got a strong offer , and when the draft came and went without a trade, it was widely assumed that Jones wasn’t going anywhere. Eric Branch of the San Francisco Chronicle reports however, that the 49ers likely would trade Jones if they see enough development from 2025 seventh-round draft pick Kurtis Rourke. Jones’ base salary of $1.4 million this season would make him very attractive to any team that finds itself in need of a quarterback and doesn’t have much salary cap space. A trade of Jones likely wouldn’t happen until some other team loses its starting quarterback to an injury. But that happens in the NFL every year, and when it happens this year, the 49ers may be ready to answer that team’s call
Now healthy, 49ers QB Kurtis Rourke is showing off his arm talent: ‘Heck of a thrower’ (paywall) “ The 6-foot-5, 220-pound Rourke spent his rookie season recovering from ACL surgery and was never activated to the 53-man roster. But he’s been hard at work with the 49ers and QB kinesiologist Rob Williams. Rourke has been sharpening his mechanics with Williams up in Canada — he was born in Kitchener, Ontario — for the past five years. “It’s been mostly getting the footwork down, trying to get a wider base and be able to hit a variety of throws,” Rourke said. “Working on a lot of under-center drops as well, stuff that I didn’t do in college.” …. Williams has been working with Rourke to take the stress off his upper body. “Kurtis is a big body with long levers, and he’s always been an arm thrower, very much sort of an old school, linear arm thrower,” Williams said in a telephone interview. “My approach is just to say that’s great and it’s obviously working for you, but we can be a little more efficient if we can get the rest of the body to help accelerate and propel the arm.” Getting Rourke’s hips and core more involved would help improve his velocity, accuracy and spiral quality. “His ceiling is very, very high,” Williams said. Indiana coach Curt Cignetti compared Rourke to “an old, grizzly NFL vet” whose “calm, cool demeanor” shouldn’t fool people into thinking that he’s not a “warrior.”…. His biggest takeaway from watching Purdy and Jones at meetings, practices and games last season? “It sounds cliche, but just the details that they had every week,” Rourke said. “They put so much thought and detail into everything, to make sure that every single play they knew the details of everything, where our feet are, what coverage it’s good against … all that. I saw what it takes to succeed at a high level like they did.” Barrows: San Francisco 49ers 2026 schedule: Travel-heavy slate includes 5 primetime games (paywall) “The opener will be a good test of foreign-soil approaches. The 49ers plan to arrive well in advance of the game so they can adjust to the vast time zone difference. The Los Angeles Rams will likely arrive in the run-up to the game. The team with the better plan and execution will have an advantage. As far as X’s and O’s, the 49ers had a tough time with the Rams’ three-tight-end packages last year. They should have more options — fifth-round rookie Jaden Dugger? — when it comes to matching up this time.” Matt Maiocco’s way-too-early 49ers game-by-game predictions for 2026 NFL season “After that key NFC West matchup in Week 1, the 49ers will come back to Santa Clara for three consecutive home games. Each of those games is scheduled for the heat of the day, which could lead to some uncomfortable conditions for those seated on the sunny side of Levi’s Stadium. And those three straight home games early in the season mean the 49ers will finish with a road-heavy stretch to cap the regular season. Here is a look at each game on the 49ers’ schedule, along with a knee-jerk prediction. After tabulating the returns, it looks like an 11-6 season and a return trip to the playoffs for Kyle Shanahan and Co.” Wagoner: San Francisco 49ers schedule 2026: Takeaways, predictions “From Nov. 15-29, the 49ers will learn a lot about where they stand in the NFC playoff chase with a road trip to play the Cowboys followed by the Mexico City game against the Vikings and a home date against the defending champion Seahawks. There’s another tough stretch from Weeks 14-16 but that won’t matter if the 49ers don’t get through this November trio of games in good shape. In 2022, the 49ers went to Colorado Springs to acclimate to the altitude before Mexico City and if they do it again, it would make sense to go directly there from Dallas . That could make for a long week and, potentially, lead to some fatigue when the Seahawks come to town.“
