The San Francisco 49ers have been the most-injured team in the NFL this season, especially with the injuries that they’re dealing with at quarterback.
Heading into their Week 6 matchup against the Baltimore Ravens, they’ve ruled out Brock Purdy due to a toe injury, and Mac Jones is questionable with a knee and oblique injury. That leaves Adrian Martinez as the only fully healthy quarterback on the 53-man roster.
On top of these situations at the position, the 49ers still have rookie quarterback Kurtis Rourke, who is recovering from a torn ACL, on the reserve/non-football injury list. However, 49ers head coach Kyle Shanahan indicated that Rourke could begin practicing in the near future.
“We should open his window soon,” Shanahan said during his media availability on Friday. “We’re getting really close to. Probably a few weeks away. I mean, it could be anywhere from next week to a few weeks, but he’s close. He’s moving well. It’ll be soon.”
With three quarterbacks already on the active roster, and Shanahan indicating earlier this week that Purdy isn’t a candidate for injured reserve at this time, San Francisco will have some decisions to make when Rourke’s practice window is up.
“Yeah, I think that’s a lot,” Shanahan said. “I think he’ll look good when he is ready to go in those three weeks, but someone who has missed all of the offseason and everything, that would be tough to call him next man up or any situation like that. So that’s why he probably could have gone this week, especially with us being down at quarterback and everything, but we’d like to wait until he is fully healthy. We’re not going to put him up just for that reason. So, we’ll see how his three weeks go and if it makes sense on our roster and he can do it, then we’ll do that, and if not, we’ll shut him down.”
The 49ers could release Rourke and hope to sneak him onto the practice squad, or they could do the same with Martinez. However, with how frequent the injuries have come for San Francisco this year, there’s a chance that they’ll need him on the active roster at that point.
Rourke appeared in 48 games at Ohio and Indiana from 2019-24, completing 67% of his passes for 10,693 yards, 79 touchdowns and 21 interceptions. He also rushed for 793 yards and 13 touchdowns.
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