The Detroit Lions can begin working out Monday -- two weeks before most of the rest of the league -- due to their offseason coaching change.

But league rules restrict what the new staff, led by head coach Jim Caldwell, can do with players until they report for minicamp. And now we know when that will be.

The team announced Thursday its voluntary minicamp will be April 22-24. That's when the staff will begin fully implementing the new offense and defense.

"I haven't met a great majority of the team yet," Caldwell said last week. "So I have to get a real good feel for these guys in a short amount of time and be able to put them in the proper position in order to be successful."

The voluntary minicamp is followed by OTAs May 20-22, May 27-29 and June 2-5. The mandatory minicamp will be June 10-12, followed by the start of training camp in July.

Caldwell already has communicated sporadically with a few of his players, mostly team leaders such as Matthew Stafford, Ndamukong Suh and Stephen Tulloch, but league rules prohibit him from talking football-specifics.

Detroit can't even give out playbooks yet.

"A guy can do stuff on his own, but you can't work with him, you can't lead him, you can't give him direction," Caldwell said. "It's different. Back in the old days, by now Peyton (Manning) and I would have gone through the great majority of the season in terms of snaps and looking at it."

Caldwell would not say whether he intends to hold a camp specific for his quarterbacks, as some other coaches have done.

"We're going to do what the rules allow us to do," he said. "We can start meeting with them on April 7. So when do you think we're going to start meeting with them? April 7."