Ha Ha Clinton-Dix: The Green Bay Packers Career That Defined Him – and Ended Too Early
Ha’Sean Treshon Clinton-Dix played 98 games in the NFL. Fourteen of his 16 career interceptions came in green and gold. He won a Pro Bowl, earned second-team All-Pro honors, and started every postseason game the Packers played during his four-plus years on the roster. Then Green Bay traded him for a fourth-round pick on October 30, 2018 – mid-season, no goodbye, just gone.
He eventually came back, of course. On December 29, 2022, Clinton-Dix signed a ceremonial one-day contract and retired as a Packer. Whether that ending makes the story feel complete probably depends on how much you think those four seasons deserved a better exit.
The Name, the Nickname, and the Background
The nickname came first, really. Ha Ha Clinton-Dix grew up in Orlando, Florida – born December 21, 1992 – and the name followed him from childhood through Dr. Phillips High School, through Tuscaloosa, all the way to Lambeau Field. His legal first name is Ha’Sean. Nobody ever called him that.
At Dr. Phillips, he was one of the top safety prospects in Florida. Nick Saban personally made the recruiting visit, showing up at his mother’s house when Clinton-Dix was in 11th grade. Clinton-Dix later recalled Saban looking him in the eye and promising he would get his degree whether football worked out or not. He chose Alabama over everyone else, and the degree happened – a bachelor’s in criminal justice, completed while he was already playing in the NFL.
Two BCS national championships at Alabama (2011 and 2012). Consensus All-American in 2013. First-team All-SEC. He left after his junior year with the kind of college resume that usually signals a top-10 pick, though the draft would eventually suggest otherwise.
The 2014 NFL Draft: Why Green Bay Took Him at 21
The Packers entered that draft with a specific problem. Their safeties had recorded zero interceptions in 2013. Zero. The entire season. Morgan Burnett and M.D. Jennings were the starters, and while Burnett was reliable in coverage, the position as a group was a liability in the takeaway department.
Green Bay had the 21st overall pick. Several analysts thought Clinton-Dix would go higher – somewhere in the 12-to-15 range – but he slipped. The knock on him was not football IQ or ball skills; scouts questioned his athleticism relative to the new breed of rangy, faster safeties entering the league. The Packers, under Ted Thompson, did not care. They took him and immediately handed him a starting job.
His rookie season: 16 starts, 96 tackles, three interceptions, a sack. PFWA All-Rookie Team. For a safety drafted at 21, that’s a clean debut. The defense under Dom Capers gave him real responsibilities in zone coverage, and he fit the scheme without a learning curve that caused problems.
Four Seasons in Green Bay: The Actual Numbers
2015 was arguably his most complete season from a volume standpoint. He led the entire team with 117 tackles – 97 solo – and added three sacks, the most by a Green Bay safety since Mark Roman had 3.5 in 2004. Two interceptions that year. The Packers went 10-6 and Clinton-Dix started every game.
Then 2016 happened. Five interceptions, tied for fifth in the NFL. Second among all safeties. Pro Bowl. Second-team All-Pro from the Associated Press. All-NFC from the PFWA. That season he was legitimately one of the best safeties in the conference, and it was not a close call.
Through four-plus seasons total in Green Bay: 419 tackles (337 solo), 14 interceptions, 38 passes defensed, three forced fumbles. In the seven postseason games he started as a Packer, he added 39 tackles, three more picks, and 11 passes defensed. He was not a liability in January. That part matters.
2017 is where the story gets complicated. Aaron Rodgers broke his collarbone in Week 6, the offense fell apart, and the defense – which had never been a strength even in good years – was asked to carry too much. Clinton-Dix’s numbers dropped. His production was reasonable but not eye-catching, and rumblings started that contract extension talks were not going well.
The Packers’ Best Safety of the 2010s? It’s Him.
LeRoy Butler is the gold standard for this franchise at safety – Hall of Famer, inventor of the Lambeau Leap, three-time Pro Bowler. Nick Collins was on that trajectory before a neck injury ended his career in 2011 at age 27. Collins had 21 interceptions in seven seasons and two Super Bowl appearances. That’s the ceiling.
Clinton-Dix sits below that tier, but during his actual time in Green Bay, from 2014 to early 2018, he was the best safety on the roster. Morgan Burnett was the steady partner; Clinton-Dix was the playmaker. His 14 interceptions led the entire team over that span, which is a clean, unambiguous number.
What’s worth noting is that the 2016 Pro Bowl season came in a year when the Packers’ defense was not elite by any stretch. He made plays despite the context around him, not because everything else was working. That’s harder to do.
The 2018 Trade: What Green Bay Actually Got
October 30, 2018. Green Bay sent Clinton-Dix to Washington for a 2019 fourth-round pick. The Packers were 3-3-1 at that point, Aaron Rodgers was healthy after missing most of 2017, and the team was not in rebuilding mode – at least not officially. The trade made almost no football sense from a timing standpoint.
The stated reason, then and since, was contract. Clinton-Dix was heading into the final year of his rookie deal and extension talks had stalled. Rather than let him walk in the spring for nothing, Green Bay took the fourth-rounder. Brian Gutekunst had taken over from Ted Thompson as GM that offseason, and this was one of his first major moves.
That fourth-round pick became the 118th overall selection in 2019. The Packers traded it. It eventually yielded Hjalte Froholdt, an offensive lineman who played parts of four seasons without making a significant impact. So the return for Clinton-Dix, in practical terms, was close to nothing.
The Packers replaced him with Kentrell Brice and Adrian Amos, who was signed in free agency the following spring. Amos was fine. But the manner of Clinton-Dix’s departure – mid-season, without a proper goodbye to a fan base that genuinely liked him – is the part that still bothers some people. He had led that defense in interceptions for four years.
Five Teams in Three Years: The Post-Green Bay Circuit
Washington, first. He played the second half of 2018 with the Redskins. Four games, decent coverage grades, nothing that looked like a player who’d fallen off.
Chicago Bears in 2019. A full season – 15 games, 78 tackles, two interceptions. Reasonable. The Bears were a legitimate defense that year under Chuck Pagano, and Clinton-Dix contributed. He was not the problem.
Dallas in 2020, signed partly because Mike McCarthy had taken over as head coach and they had history. McCarthy was the Packers’ head coach who drafted him in 2014. Clinton-Dix specifically said he thought the Cowboys could win a Super Bowl. They went 6-10. He was released before the regular season ended.
After Dallas: the San Francisco 49ers (practice squad only), Las Vegas Raiders (a handful of games in 2021), Denver Broncos (also 2021, also a brief stay). The career was winding down, which happens. He was 28 years old and had played seven NFL seasons. That’s not a failure. That’s a full career for a safety at any level.
Retiring as a Packer: The One-Day Contract
He was in New Orleans in late December 2022, where Alabama was preparing for the Sugar Bowl against Kansas State. Clinton-Dix was already in his new role as the Crimson Tide’s director of player development. The Packers called. They offered a one-day contract so he could retire in green and gold. He took it.
At the press conference, he described Green Bay as a place that had brought him in as family. That’s a specific, earned thing to say – he was there for four years as a young player, found his footing as a professional, and clearly still felt connected to the organization even after the abrupt 2018 exit. Whether the trade still stings privately, he didn’t say.
The retirement numbers as a Packer specifically: 419 tackles, 14 interceptions, 38 passes defensed, three forced fumbles. He started 65 of his 71 regular-season games in Green Bay. And the seven playoff starts, with three postseason picks, in a city that takes its football history seriously.
What He’s Doing Now
Nick Saban retired from coaching in January 2024, but Clinton-Dix had already been working in the Alabama program for a year before that. His job – director of player development – means working with current Crimson Tide players on their NFL preparation, financial education, life-after-football planning. The same pipeline he came through, now from the other side.
He has said the goal is eventually coaching. Whether that means college or the NFL, he hasn’t been specific. What’s clear is that the Alabama connection, which started when Saban showed up at his mother’s house in Orlando in the early 2010s, has turned into a career thread that outlasted football itself.
Clinton-Dix’s full career stat line: 522 total tackles, 16 interceptions, 212 interception return yards, 5.5 sacks, four forced fumbles, one defensive touchdown. He played 98 games over seven seasons for six different franchises. The one that mattered most – or at least the one he chose to end with – was the first one.
Comments