ALLEN PARK, Mich. -- Corey Fuller spent last season learning.

He ended up on the Detroit Lions' practice squad after being a sixth-round pick in 2013, an extremely raw receiver with only two seasons of experience playing wide receiver. But he ended up on the same team as the best receiver in the NFL, Calvin Johnson, so immediately, he had a mentor.

And all he did last season, as he mimicked other receivers in the NFL on the scout team, was try to learn from the guy whose locker he was right by.

“I talk to him about everything,” Fuller said. “When he runs a go route, I talk to him. When I run a go route, I talk to him. Just everything.”

It helped him eventually make this year’s team, beating out veteran Kris Durham for a roster spot and then Kevin Ogletree and Ryan Broyles for space on the active game-day roster.

The fuller development of Fuller has come intermittently now that he is actually on the Lions' 53-man roster and playing every week. With Detroit having a bunch of talented players around him, Fuller isn’t being asked to do all that much.

Actually, his job is fairly simple in some ways. When he is out there, he is either blocking or running deep.

“Probably about 90 percent of the time, it’s a go or a post,” Fuller said. “Ninety percent of the time I’m running deep or blocking.”

Fuller has been used on 66 snaps through four games and has run 25 routes in those games, including a career-high 10 routes run Sunday against the Jets when Calvin Johnson was nursing an ankle injury.

He’s only been targeted three times, though, although all three of those targets came in the past two weeks – including his lone catch, a 52-yard reception against Green Bay.

Fuller, in his second season out of Virginia Tech, believes he can do more as well. But he isn’t really expected to because of Calvin Johnson and Golden Tate and the Detroit running backs and tight ends.

“I think, me personally, I can do more,” Fuller said. “Coaches know I can do more. But when you got all the talent around you, you can single out what you’re good at and let other guys do what they are good at.”

For Fuller, that has always been using his speed – he started out running track at Kansas – to beat defensive backs downfield. By doing so, it is forcing defenses to at least keep an eye on him as he sprints downfield because if they leave him open, it turns into an explosive play.

So this opens up some of the underneath routes for Tate, Reggie Bush and Joique Bell.

Eventually, though, he knows he has to take his acclimation to the NFL and turn it into production. It’s all part of his learning curve.

“Right now I’m playing my role,” Fuller said. “And as time goes on, more production will come.”