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Green Bay Packers free safety Ha Ha Clinton-Dix makes an interception during an NFL playoff game against the Arizona Cardinals on Jan. 16, 2016.

(AP Photo)

Some players in the NFL hit the sophomore slump. Some make the sophomore jump. Put Green Bay Packers free safety Ha Ha Clinton-Dix in the latter group.

A consensus All-American at Alabama, Clinton-Dix went to the Packers with the 21st pick in the 2014 NFL Draft. But Green Bay didn't put him in the starting lineup right away.

Clinton-Dix started his rookie season splitting time with Micah Hyde and didn't make his first start until the seventh game of his first season. Despite the measured start, Clinton-Dix finished second on the team with 93 tackles and earned a spot on the NFL All-Rookie team.

Clinton-Dix returned for 2015 as a starter and made 100 tackles - 32 more than any other Packer.

Clinton-Dix played all but three of Green Bay's 1,051 defensive snaps in 2015. Only one defensive player in the NFL - Philadelphia Eagles safety Malcolm Jenkins - played a higher percentage of his team's snaps than Clinton-Dix did.

"Each year, you kind of want to see a player that's made a huge jump in his second year, and he's definitely the one this year," Green Bay coach Mike McCarthy told reporters at the NFL Scouting Combine. "Ha Ha, I thought, had a tremendous year."

Clinton-Dix's emergence is one of the reasons that McCarthy said the Green Bay secondary "has a bright future."

After four seasons with the Packers, cornerback Casey Hayward may be moving on as an unrestricted free agent. But Green Bay has Damarious Randall and Quinten Rollins coming off their rookie seasons as NFL corners to go with Hyde, a three-year veteran, and Morgan Burnett and Sam Shields, a pair of six-year vets, available with Clinton-Dix as defensive backs.

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While Clinton-Dix is the free safety and Burnett the strong safety, Green Bay defensive coordinator Dom Capers mixes and matches their assignments to the Packers' best advantage. Clinton-Dix had two interceptions and three sacks, in addition to his 100 tackles, in 2015, illustrating Green Bay's wide-ranging use of the safety in the box and as a center fielder.

"He played at a very high level at a fairly exposed role," said Ted Thompson, Green Bay's general manager, at the NFL Scouting Combine. "We've asked him to do a lot of different things, as do everybody else in the league in terms of their safety production. But we do ask him to do a lot of different things. I think he's done a really good job."