GREEN BAY, Wis. -- Toward the end of last season, Ha Ha Clinton-Dix adopted a new interview policy.

The Green Bay Packers safety was still polite when reporters approached. He didn’t morph into former Packers wide receiver Sterling Sharpe, who famously stopped talking to the local media following his rookie season of 1988. And he didn’t become belligerent or combative, as more than a few players have over the years.

Rather, Clinton-Dix simply declared one topic off-limits: Himself.

“I don’t want to be a ‘me’ guy. I know what I do, I know what I put on film, I know what I try to do. I don’t want to talk about what I’ve done,” Clinton-Dix explained when asked about the conversational cut-back. “I just want to continue getting better and build as a player.”

The good news is, given the way Clinton-Dix was playing at the end of last season, his play should do plenty of talking for him in 2016.

“He’s played at a very high level in a fairly exposed role,” general manager Ted Thompson said. “We’ve asked him to do a lot of different things -- like everybody else in the league in terms of their safety production -- and I think he’s done a really good job.”

As the Packers prepare for the start of their organized team activity practices next week, Clinton-Dix is among the young players moving into more prominent roles -- and his performance last season gives Packers coach Mike McCarthy every reason to think he’s ready for more responsibility.

“Each year you kind of want to single out a player who’s made a huge jump in his second year, and he’s definitely the one [who did it in 2015],” McCarthy said. “I thought had a tremendous year.”

Clinton-Dix started all 18 games (including playoffs) last season, registering a team-leading 138 tackles with three interceptions, three sacks, a forced fumble and eight pass breakups. He showed the ability to play center field, come up to the line of scrimmage in run support and reduced his missed tackles from 15 to nine.

He also was far more consistent than he was his rookie season, with the 2014 NFC Championship Game loss to Seattle serving as a microcosm of his first year. Although he intercepted a pair of Russell Wilson passes in that game, he failed to break up Wilson’s desperation rainbow 2-point conversion throw late in the game -- a play that, had Clinton-Dix batted the pass down, likely would’ve sent the Packers to the Super Bowl. (Not that there weren’t a host of other plays the Packers botched that day.)

“I felt like if I could have made that one play, I’d have given up those two interceptions that I had,” Clinton-Dix said, adding that his performance in that game had “nothing to do with” his new interview policy. “My rookie year, I had a few games where I played decent, and then I’d come back and f--- up that next week. Or I just wouldn’t play as good. So I’ve decided to stay away from the ‘me,’ what I’ve done, what I contributed to. You’ll see what it is on film.”

If McCarthy is right, you’ll also see a third-year player emerge as a more vocal leader on a defense he believes is headed toward being a championship-caliber unit.

“Leadership is always the focus,” McCarthy said. “It’s something that I’ve spent a lot of time on. You look at your team, and when you’re young, you have to create opportunities for guys to step up and lead. I think that’s where the void will be filled. I look for Ha Ha Clinton-Dix and some of these guys to step up and take advantage of it.”