Facts on Melifonwu building confidence this season: a quad injury left him on IR. An ankle ailment limited him to 10 games in 2022. But this past year, Melifonwu avoided injury and played in all 17 games.

He became a starter in the last six games of the season. That’s when the potential Lions general manager Melifonwu saw in the 6-foot-3, 210-pound cornerback out of Syracuse shone out. Melifonwu was shifted from corner to safety midway through last season, with this year being his first complete run at the position.

“Being healthy, I feel like my confidence is growing every week,” Melifonwu stated after the season. “It’s going to grow throughout the offseason as well as when I go back and watch myself. I know I’m definitely going to be kicking myself because there’s probably a lot of plays I left out there during the whole season. “But I’m just happy to finish this year healthy, and my confidence is going to keep growing.”

Melifonwu came on strong at the end of the year after being moved into the starting lineup for Week 14. In Week 15 vs. Denver, he posted two passes defended, a sack, and a forced fumble. In a Week 16 clash in Minnesota, Melifonwu defended two passes, posted 2.0 sacks, and had the NFC North title-clinching interception at the end of the game. The following week in Dallas, he recorded his second pick of the season.

Despite playing in just 37 percent of Detroit’s snaps on defense this season, Melifonwu was one of three defensive backs in the NFL to produce at least 3.0 sacks and two interceptions.

“He had his chance, and he did a really nice job to step up,” Holmes said this week of his third-year safety.

Melifonwu became a weapon as a blitzer and pass rusher too, and it’s something he says he worked incredibly hard to incorporate into his game.

“I blitzed one time in college. I had a sack on my one blitz in college,” he said. “I think it was just my size and athletic abilities, and then I learned to use my hands this season. Meeting with (defensive coordinator Aaron Glenn) AG, he would describe the blitzes to me like, ‘We are showing down here, they had to slide this way, you are going to come free.’ He would explain blitzes to me, so I would really trust them. Then it was simply timing it up and working on my disguise.”

Melifonwu said when he tried to blitz as a rookie, playing some nickel corner, it was so horrible that the coaching staff stopped asking him to do it. He was either tipping the blitz off too early or was going too late and not getting home. There’s an art to being a good blitzer in the NFL, and Melifonwu has discovered the happy balance between disguise and timing. Being a freak athlete doesn’t hurt either.

The contributions Melifonwu made late in the season and in Detroit’s playoff run are a compliment to him and the defensive coaching staff for developing and giving an opportunity to another young player. Melifonwu might have a tremendously large role in this defense right from the start in 2024.