It's not one of those injuries that’s going to take a couple weeks. It's going to be a little bit. – Detroit Lions coach Jim Caldwell, on Kyle Van Noy
The prognosis for former BYU linebacker Kyle Van Noy is looking worse and it appears the second-year Detroit Lion could be facing another NFL season lost to injury.
Two days after Lions coach Jim Caldwell said Van Noy is dealing with an undisclosed injury and requires further testing, he told reporters Tuesday it could shelve Van Noy for several weeks, possibly longer.
"It's not one of those injuries that’s going to take a couple weeks," Caldwell said, according to team writer Tim Twentyman. "It's going to be a little bit."
Caldwell was asked if Van Noy had an abdominal injury.
"Not going to get into a particular. My response to that would be no," Caldwell said.
Van Noy was placed on short-term injured reserve last year and missed eight regular-season games after suffering a sports hernia during the preseason. When he came back, the second-round pick by Detroit in 2014 was buried on the depth chart and played mostly on special teams, finishing the year with six tackles.
It's been a tough venture into the pro world for the former Cougar standout, who proved to be a menace for opposing quarterbacks in college with 26 career sacks and helped the Cougar defense end the 2012 season ranked fifth in the country in total defense.
Lions defensive coordinator Teryl Austin told MLive.com's Kyle Meinke that Van Noy has shown incremental progress in pass coverage, which he's struggled at in Detroit, but needs the practice time on the field to continue his development.
"He was a guy that never played off the ball in college, so now we're asking him to play off the ball and read inside keys and linemen and all kinds of different things, which is a lot different," Austin said, according to Meinke, while stating the Lions are now in a "holding pattern" with Van Noy. "You can't get a guy up to speed until he's available to practice."
Whether this latest injury results in a return to the short-term IR or, worse, being designated for injured reserve and being lost for the season, it's a tough setback for the 25-year-old player in need of on-field player development.
Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press reported that Van Noy is getting a second opinion on the injury and Caldwell said surgery isn't required for Van Noy as of now.
"It just kind of depends on what the final prognosis is and just, in terms of how long we think it's going to take, and then we have to make a decision from there," Caldwell said, according to Birkett.
Email: bjudd@deseretdigital.com; Twitter: @brandonljudd