Stephen Tulloch may not know about his status with the Detroit Lions for 2015, but the rehabilitation of his torn left ACL is something he is not worried about.
Tulloch said Sunday on SiriusXM Radio that recovery on the knee, injured celebrating a sack of Green Bay quarterback Aaron Rodgers in Week 3, is going ahead of schedule.
"I'm way ahead of schedule and I feel great," Tulloch said. "I was telling a friend of mine yesterday, man, it's crazy how you feel stronger than you did previous, before the surgery. Just training every day and working hard with my trainers and my rehab therapists, it's great and I'm looking forward to the season."
Tulloch is hoping that his return will be in Detroit and he is planning on reporting to the Lions on April 20 along with the rest of his teammates. He said neither he nor his agent, Drew Rosenhaus, have heard from the Lions so he is operating as if he'll be with the franchise next season and said he received mail about the team's offseason program.
The 30-year-old is due $5.8 million against the cap for 2015 after coming off his first serious injury in the pros. He is in the fourth year of a five-year deal he signed in 2012 to come to the Lions from Tennessee. The injury broke a string of 131 straight regular-season games played for Tulloch and a streak of five straight seasons with 100-plus tackles.
When he missed time, the Lions filled in his spot with a combination of Tahir Whitehead and Josh Bynes in the middle. Initially, Whitehead had also taken over defensive play-calling, but that role eventually was transferred to outside linebacker DeAndre Levy.
Tulloch had played well in his two-plus games before being injured, making 20 tackles and picking up two sacks. General manager Martin Mayhew praised Tulloch at the NFL combine when asked about the middle linebacker's future.
"The thing with Stephen is, his grades were exceptional in all those games," Mayhew said. "And I think he was still adapting to our new defensive scheme at that time. So I don't think he think he totally had the whole scheme down as a MIKE backer. There's a lot of plays in front of him and on the back end so he has to make a lot of calls and there's a lot of responsibility that he has that a guy like say Rashean Mathis or Jason Jones doesn't have because he's the middle linebacker.
"He was still sort of adapting to the scheme and he was playing lights out. He was playing great. You have to evaluate all that as you go but I was happy with the way he played last year."