Senior Bowl features QB from Canada. How did he get to NFL draft showcase?

The lead-up to the 2025 NFL draft is in full swing with the Senior Bowl under way in Mobile, Alabama. Every year, draft-eligible players from across college football are invited to the showcase to provide more tape for NFL scouts and general managers to consider ahead of the draft.

The Senior Bowl doesn’t always attract the top names in every class, but plenty of first-round talent is in Mobile for the week of practices leading up to Saturday’s game. Players are sorted onto the ‘National’ and ‘American’ teams and will suit up against some new faces from different conferences than they faced in their college careers.

In a weaker quarterback class than usual, a few passers are trying to improve their draft stock, including Alabama’s Jalen Milroe, Ole Miss’ Jaxson Dart and Oregon’s Dillon Gabriel.

Joining them is Taylor Elgersma, the first quarterback from a Canadian university to be invited to the Senior Bowl.

The London, Ontario, native is aiming to be Canada’s first NFL quarterback in 20 years.

NFL STATS CENTRAL: The latest NFL scores, schedules, odds, stats and more.

Here’s how he got to the Senior Bowl, his profile and other Canadian players in the NFL.

How Taylor Elgersma made the Senior Bowl

Ben Neill is head coach at the Birmingham, Alabama, location of QB Country, a development academy for high school, college and NFL quarterbacks. Elgersma was in Birmingham working with him and he reached out to Senior Bowl executive director Jim Nagy.

‘Ben started hitting me up I want to say in October and he was like, ‘I know this seems like a stretch for the Senior Bowl but we’ve got this guy up in Canada,” Nagy recalled on the 3DownNation podcast. ‘He’s big, he’s strong, he’s got a big arm… I’d love to get more [eyes] on him.’

The Senior Bowl has just six to eight spots for quarterbacks every year. Last year, the game featured quarterbacks Michael Penix Jr. and Bo Nix, who were both first-round selections.

Luckily for Elgersma, one of the quarterbacks who was slated to go dropped out.

‘I had some friends that work in the NFL from other teams call me,’ Nagy said. ‘They’re like, ‘man, if you need a guy who can throw, we can tell this guy can throw. We haven’t seen a lot of tape on him… [so] we’d love to see him there.”

Nagy believes Elgersma has the size and talent to fit in at the Senior Bowl.

‘Just from a tools perspective, him being almost 6-foot-5 and 213 pounds and clearly having the arm strength on tape… it isn’t a question at all,’ he said. ‘[We] thought it would be at this point a really cool add to the game.’

If Elgersma is selected during the 2025 NFL draft or signs with a team afterwards, he’d be the first quarterback born in Canada to make the NFL since Jesse Palmer in 2003.

Taylor Elgersma bio, scouting report

Elgersma was a three-year starter for the Golden Hawks of Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo, Ontario. Here’s how his numbers looked each year as a starter:

2022 (10 games): 178-of-270 (65.9%) passing, 2,141 yards, 15 touchdowns, nine interceptions; 32 carries, 125 rushing yards, one touchdown
2023 (11 games): 274-of-367 (74.6%) passing, 3,482 yards, 25 touchdowns, eight interceptions; 35 carries, 182 rushing yards, 10 touchdowns
2024 (13 games): 293-of-397 (73.8%) passing, 4,252 yards, 35 touchdowns, 11 interceptions; 49 carries, 245 rushing yards, seven touchdowns

Elgersma has NFL size at 6-foot-5 and 212 pounds. His arm strength is impressive even by NFL standards and his athleticism offers some mobility outside of the pocket. He’s drawn comparisons physically to former first-round quarterback Paxton Lynch.

His numbers and tape have come at the Canadian college football level, hence why the Senior Bowl is important for his NFL outlook. He’s had some good throws in Senior Bowl practices but also a bad interception.

Canadian players in the NFL

There are 27 active players who were born in Canada. There have been 136 total in the league’s history, most notably Pro Football Hall of Famers Bronko Nagurski and Arnie Weinmeister.

Here’s a list of active NFL players born in Canada, per Pro Football Reference: