Will Lions get more out of Van Noy in 2015?

INDIANAPOLIS -- Kyle Van Noy lost the first half of his rookie season with the Detroit Lions to a sports hernia, and when he finally was able to play midway through the year, he was far enough behind that no one expected him to make much of an impact.

Healthy now but still down the depth chart, Van Noy's role for 2015 remains a bit of a mystery -- and something that Lions general manager Martin Mayhew said is "totally up to him."

"He can have a huge role if he has a great off-season and plays great," Mayhew said at the NFL combine last week. "If he doesn't have a great off-season and he doesn't play great, then his role won't be as big.

"I think, a lot of times with young players, not him specifically, but they come from a place where they've been great players and superstars and then they come into a new team, and now they've got to work their way up and play special teams and do stuff that they didn't do in college. So sometimes that's an adjustment process."

The Lions traded up to get Van Noy in the second round of last year's draft because they liked his versatility as a three-down linebacker and what he could offer as a stand-up rusher in some blitz packages.

But while Van Noy was slow grasping the Lions' defensive system and then sidelined by injury, Tahir Whitehead leapfrogged him in the rotation and proved capable of contributing at either middle or strongside linebacker.

Whitehead, DeAndre Levy and Stephen Tulloch, who's returning from a torn ACL, are the Lions' projected starting linebackers for 2015, leaving Van Noy, who had six tackles in eight games last year, with no clear path to playing time other than as an edge rusher in sub packages and core contributor on special teams.

Mayhew, who praised Whitehead's surprising development in his third NFL season -- "He's a guy who's a prime example why you're patient with guys," Mayhew said -- said that he's not worried about having a potential logjam at linebacker this fall, nor what it means for Van Noy's future.

"That's why we have the off-season," Mayhew said. "That's why we have training camp, that's why we have all those things, is for guys to go out and compete in all those areas and see where the chips fall. We have the group of guys, Kyle Van Noy to Tahir, all of those guys, work their butt off to be great, so I'm excited about watching that process."

Contact Dave Birkett at dbirkett@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @davebirkett.