GREEN BAY, Wis. -- If you want to know why Ha Ha Clinton-Dix hasn’t made the kind of impact he did last season, when the former first-round draft pick elevated his game to a Pro Bowl level, you go to his corner of the Green Bay Packers’ locker room. And when you get there, you let the fourth-year safety state his case.
“Nobody’s throwing the ball my way,” he tells a small group of reporters. “I’m not being targeted.”
You don’t take his word for it, because he insists that you don’t.
“If you guys just come up [to the film room] and watch me and watch where I’m at, where you think the ball’s supposed to be going, and it’s not going there. There’s a reason why it’s not going there,” Clinton-Dix said. “I’m telling you, I’m sitting on everything. I’m getting everything that comes my way.”
A review of every pass play from Sunday’s 31-28 loss at Pittsburgh -- all 46 of Ben Roethlisberger’s attempts -- all but confirms that not much has come his way. He had two realistic chances to make plays on the ball. One, the two-point play to Antonio Brown, was Clinton-Dix’s play to break up, but Brown squeezed past him for the conversion. The other was Brown’s 39-yard catch and run in the second quarter. Clinton-Dix, playing deep like he did most of the game, came from the opposite side of the field and either took a poor angle or overran the play.
Yes, Clinton-Dix acknowledged he was guilty of two missed tackles, but with him playing so deep and Roethlisberger rarely throwing anywhere close to his area, there was little he could do to improve on a stat line that showed three tackles, no interceptions, no pass breakups, no forced fumbles or recoveries.
“I’m a free safety,” Clinton-Dix said. “The one responsibility I have is making the play, really. So I take those chances. But I mean I get all these tips and tendencies from [safeties coach Darren Perry] and they hold true every game, so I’m telling you every time I’m around the ball. Look. I want you guys to look. I’m around the ball and the quarterback is not coming my way. That’s just the bottom line. Check it out.”
Defensive coordinator Dom Capers has asked Clinton-Dix to be patient. Capers admitted he played him deep so often against the Steelers as a way to try to slow down the speedy Brown.
“I think any really good player wants to make as many plays as he can,” Capers said. “So yeah, you’ve got to make sure that, No. 1, your plays will come. You can’t try to force it and make it happen. That’s when, all of a sudden, you do put yourself in poor positions. There will be opportunities.”
The former first-round pick made his first Pro Bowl last season largely on the strength of his five interceptions, which tied with his good friend and former college teammate Landon Collins of the Giants for the league lead among safeties.
“I was just talking to Landon. He’s been in a situation where they’re not winning ball games over there, either,” Clinton-Dix said. “He’s been put in situations where he’s trying to do too much, and it makes him look really bad. You’ve just got to play complementary football, you’ve just got to wait your time. But I’m telling, all season I’ve been on s---, I’ve been on routes, I’ve been sitting on things, my level of play, my game, my thought process is off the chain. I’m telling you, I read the quarterback, I know where he’s going with the ball, but it’s not going my way.”
Clinton-Dix has two interceptions through 11 games this season. One of those came two weeks ago against the Ravens, but he dropped another one in that game that would’ve kept points off the board. Instead, Baltimore turned that drive into a field goal.
“I can’t afford to miss passes like that because they don’t come my way,” Clinton-Dix said. “That’s just the bottom line, whether I’m covering a receiver or a tight end, the ball’s never thrown my way. You all go back and check that out and let me know what you all think. I’d like this feedback.”