Former South Dakota State Jackrabbit receiver Jadon Janke is now in Green Bay
On Wednesday, the Green Bay Packers announced the signing of wide receiver Jadon Janke (pronounced YON-kee, per Packers.com), the former college teammate of current Packers starting tight end Tucker Kraft.
Janke is a 6’2”, 212lb receiver from South Dakota State (go Jackrabbits). He was signed by the Houston Texans as an undrafted free agent before the 2024 season. They released him during training camp, after which he went to the Miami Dolphins and finished up camp there before they cut him.
Janke was with the Jackrabbits from 2018-2023, getting regular offensive snaps starting in 2020. He had his best season in 2023, hauling in 60 catches (on 80 targets) for 1,005 yards and 11 TDs. In their playoff game against Albany, Janke caught 6 of his 7 targets for 151 yards.
During his time with the Jackrabbits, Janke split time evenly between lining up wide and lining up in the slot: from 2021-2023, 50.5% of Janke’s snaps were wide and 47.6% were in the slot (with the other 1.9% coming from inline or the backfield).
Jadon Janke is a WR prospect in the 2024 draft class. He scored a 6.79 #RAS out of a possible 10.00. This ranked 1094 out of 3402 WR from 1987 to 2024. https://t.co/FnANG4wJaP pic.twitter.com/gsKQp4wLex
— RAS.football (@MathBomb) April 17, 2024
Based on his play, the RAS score for Janke isn’t a huge surprise. He shows some good initial release off the line, but doesn’t have breakaway speed down the field, as is evidenced by his 4.53 40. Decent speed, but nothing game-breaking.
He has good size and strength, but his arms are a little on the shorter side, which shows up in his blocking. He can let guys get into his body and knock him back. If Janke can get there first, he has the ability to hold the point, but there are many examples of Janke getting knocked back on initial contact and unable to recover. He’s a willing blocker and can lose slowly in those situations, but you’d like a guy like this to be able to make run blocking his bread-and-butter.
Against zone coverage, he has good recognition and is able to throttle down into the soft spots. His route-running as a whole can be a bit spotty. He sells vertical routes well, but it’s inconsistent when breaking at the top of the route. He’s not a sudden athlete, causing some rounded breaks in times when they need to be a bit sharper. He has decent stop/start ability, but the lack of long speed doesn’t always allow him to take advantage of the times he wins. He also has a tendency to get a bit pushy when trying to separate on vertical routes, resorting to the Michael Irvin two-handed shove on multiple occasions.
He has shown himself to be a sure-handed receiver. After dropping 9 passes between 2020-2021 (7.1% drop rate), he only dropped 3 passes between 2022-2023 (2.0% drop rate).
For a bit of an undersized, short-armed player, he shows himself to be surprisingly good in contested catch situations. Those can be really fun, but, due to his limitations, I don’t think that’s a skill that will really carry over for him at the NFL level.
Overall, a really fun college player that will probably bounce around on practice squads. His best path forward as a player is probably to bulk up a bit and just become a demon as a run blocker. Basically, become a smaller Allen Lazard. If he’s able to do that, there’s a spot for him, with the occasional big play down the field as a safety tries to duck around a block from him off play action. It’s a narrow path and he probably never hits it, but I enjoyed watching him.
As an added note, Jaron Janke has an identical twin, Jaxon Janke. Jaxon was also a receiver at SDSU. Jaxon is currently with the Houston Texans. Nothing major to report there, but it’s a fun story.
Albums listened to: Thom Yorke & Mark Pritchard – Tall Tales; Pavement – Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain