Javontae
Jean-Baptiste.
Javontae
Jean-Baptiste.
Notre Dame· 6'5"· 247 lb· 4.66s 40
"Six years of college, five of them waiting his turn behind first-round ends, and one full season of starting tape - Washington drafted the length and the 4.66, and bet the rest would follow."Pre-draft read
Jean-Baptiste is a long, lean strong-side end who lived on the edge of the formation at both Ohio State and Notre Dame, and his calling card is length. At 6-5 and 247 pounds he plays with his arms extended, stacking tight ends and finding the ball late in the down. The rush is built around a long-arm and a cross-chop off a 4.66 forty and a 1.64 ten-yard split that read as real first-step burst.
Against the run he is more setter than destroyer: he holds the edge with extension and is rarely reached, but he does not collapse a lap. As a rusher he wins with effort and hustle sacks more than a finished plan, and he flashed enough bend in 2023 to hint at more. The signature is relentless late-down chase.
Four-down, gap-and-a-half front that lets a long strong-side end set the edge with extension on early downs and rush from a wide-9 on passing downs; his 2026 team switching to a 3-4 asks him to play standing outside linebacker, which is a harder fit.
Year 1: fourth edge and core special-teamer, roughly 150-250 defensive snaps in obvious passing situations. Ceiling: a rotational 500-snap strong-side end who holds up against the run and gets six to eight pressures a month on effort and length.
A two-gap, heavy-handed front that asks a 247-pound end to hold double teams and squeeze inside gaps; he lacks the mass to anchor there and his value evaporates when he cannot use extension and space.
His special-teams resume - a blocked field goal and a blocked-kick return touchdown at Notre Dame - is a real part of the roster case for a player this far down the edge rotation.
Javontae Jean-Baptiste 2023-2024 highlights | Notre Dame DE
Full 2023 Notre Dame reel showing the long-arm rush and edge-setting technique that got him drafted.
Javontae Jean-Baptiste (Notre Dame Edge) vs Duke 2023
Single-game cutup from Duke, the night he combined for a sack and tipped a pass at the line.
Javontae Jean Baptiste Notre Dame Highlights
Compilation of his splash plays in South Bend, including the blocked field goal against Wake Forest.
Jean-Baptiste is a six-year college player and one of the older prospects in the 2024 class, a four-star New Jersey recruit who redshirted at Ohio State in 2018, spent five seasons in Columbus behind a conveyor belt of first-round ends, and finally got a full-time job as a graduate transfer at Notre Dame. He is a strong-side edge with rare arm length for his weight and the athletic testing to match.
The production tells the story of opportunity, not ability. Across four seasons of rotational work at Ohio State he totaled 53 tackles and 8.0 sacks in 44 appearances, never topping 19 tackles in a year. Given a starting job in South Bend in 2023 he played all 13 games with 12 starts and posted 49 tackles, a team-best 10.5 tackles for loss, 5.0 sacks, 11 quarterback hurries, a forced fumble and a blocked field goal he returned for a touchdown against Stanford. The flags were age — he turned 24 months after the draft — and a frame that carries weight poorly.
Boards had him as a late Day 3 developmental edge with special-teams value, exactly the profile teams take after the sixth round. Washington, in Adam Peters' first draft, spent pick 222 on the length, the testing and the one year of real tape rather than a five-year sample.
- 01
Rare length
plays with extended arms at 6-5, consistently stacking and shedding tight ends and keeping his chest clean against down blocks.
- 02
Testing burst
a 4.66 forty with a 1.64 ten-yard split at 247 pounds put him among the fastest edge players in the 2024 combine class.
- 03
Relentless motor
chases plays to the far hash and produced multiple splash finishes late in downs during his 2023 Notre Dame season.
- 04
Special-teams value
blocked a Wake Forest field goal and returned a blocked kick for a touchdown against Stanford, real fourth-down utility.
- 05
Big-program pedigree
five years behind first-round ends at Ohio State gave him a professional practice standard before he ever started.
- 01
Age curve
turned 24 shortly after the draft with six college seasons behind him, leaving little projection room left in the body.
- 02
Thin anchor
at 247 pounds he sets the edge with extension rather than power and gets displaced by combination blocks at the point.
- 03
Undeveloped plan
wins with long-arm and hustle more than a counter tree; his sack production came in bunches rather than by design.
- 04
One-year sample
only 2023 was a full-time starting season, so the evaluation rests on 13 games rather than a sustained body of work.
— — — positional median (p50)
- 40 yd
- 4.66sp50
- Vertical
- 34.5inp50
- Broad jump
- 127inp50
- Three-cone
- —s
- Shuttle
- —s
- Bench
- —rep
| Yr | Team | G | Tkl | Sk | Int | PD | FF |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | Ohio State | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2019 | Ohio State | 14 | 14 | 1.5 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2020 | Ohio State | 6 | 6 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| 2021 | Ohio State | 11 | 14 | 1.5 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| 2022 | Ohio State | 13 | 19 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 2023 | Notre Dame | 13 | 49 | 5 | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Career | — | 59 | 102 | 13 | 0 | 2 | 2 |
Season splits per official school stats: 2018 was a redshirt year with two appearances and no recorded defensive production. Career totals are 59 games, 102 tackles and 13.0 sacks across Ohio State (2018-2022) and Notre Dame (2023). Tackles for loss are only listed where an official source publishes the figure - Ohio State reported 6.5 TFL through 2021 and Notre Dame reported a team-best 10.5 in 2023 - so unpublished season TFL values are left blank rather than filled with zeros.
A dash means the figure is not published by a source we trust — never a zero we invented.
Late-round edge whose NFL value is core special teams and situational rush snaps rather than a defined defensive role.
Long, lean edge who was overlooked coming out and grew into a durable rotational starter through effort and extension.
Late Day 3 edge whose developmental window closed after injuries kept him from stacking meaningful snaps.
Everything above is the pre-draft evaluation. This section is what actually happened — updated year over year.
Washington kept him as a rookie and used him sparingly. He appeared in 12 games in 2024, played on all four special-teams units, and finished with 13 tackles and a sack in limited defensive work under Dan Quinn. Year two looked like it might be the step forward: he was rotating for roughly a quarter to a third of the edge snaps and sacked Geno Smith in Week 3 against the Raiders, before a torn pectoral in Week 4 against Atlanta required surgery and ended his 2025 season. Two years in he had 254 total defensive snaps, 15 games, one start, 19 tackles and two sacks. He entered the 2026 offseason as a clear bubble player on a $1.04 million salary, with the Commanders switching to a 3-4 front under a new coordinator and Adam Peters overhauling the edge room; he played 30 defensive snaps in the second preseason game and needed splash plays to survive cutdown day.
The honest read is that this is what a 222nd pick usually looks like. Washington bought a long, fast, older edge with one year of starting tape and got a special-teams contributor whose one real developmental season was cut in half by injury. Nothing here was a mistake — the tools were the reason and the tools are still there — but the window to prove a rotational role has closed to a crack.
Data note: Season splits per official school stats: 2018 was a redshirt year with two appearances and no recorded defensive production. Career totals are 59 games, 102 tackles and 13.0 sacks across Ohio State (2018-2022) and Notre Dame (2023). Tackles for loss are only listed where an official source publishes the figure - Ohio State reported 6.5 TFL through 2021 and Notre Dame reported a team-best 10.5 in 2023 - so unpublished season TFL values are left blank rather than filled with zeros.