ALLEN PARK, Mich. -- It started off bad. Detroit Lions tight end Eric Ebron went game after game, production barely there, opportunities not coming much, either. And after almost every one of those games in the first half of the 2017 season, Ebron would say he was just playing his role.

It was never clear exactly what that was -- although it was obvious more blocking was involved -- but the numbers showed it wasn’t much. In the first eight games of last season, he was targeted more than four times just three times. Two of those games were the biggest of his first eight games but there were issues, too. He dropped two passes against Atlanta and another against Carolina.

He was booed almost every time the ball was thrown toward him against Pittsburgh. He was rumored to have the potential to be traded.

Then he wasn’t. Over the second half of the season, he turned into one of the more productive tight ends in the NFL. He caught three touchdowns, averaged 5.9 targets per game and only had one game where Matthew Stafford looked at him fewer than four times.

So when he’s asked what he needs to show in the future, he looked to that nine-game stretch.

“What I would love is more opportunities to display my talents, my gifts, and what I’m capable of doing,” Ebron told ESPN recently. “That’s what I would like. I felt like at some part this year, I was underused but I do feel like, you know, we got it together and it allowed me to eventually be that playmaker that I thought I could be, which helped me and helped the team out.

“I feel like I just really want to do something because I know I could help my team in a better way if I’m making plays. I can open up Marvin [Jones]. I can open up Golden [Tate]. And we create things that are just difficult for defenses to handle.”

That’s what the Lions envisioned when they drafted Ebron with the No. 10 pick in the 2014 draft -- a pick that has been analyzed over and over again for whom former Lions general manager Martin Mayhew and head coach Jim Caldwell passed over: Six Pro Bowlers in the seven picks after Ebron, including Aaron Donald, one of the best defensive players in the league.

Ebron, meanwhile, still searched for his role. Some of that was his own doing -- drops and injuries hampered him his first three seasons. The Lions picked up his fifth-year option last May, hoping 2017 would be a breakout season.

It was half that.

Ebron finished the season with 53 catches for 574 yards and four touchdowns -- and a stat line of 38 catches, 414 yards and three touchdowns over the final nine games. For the first time in his career, he played in every game -- one of the many questions about him entering the season.

And to him, it’s about opportunities -- both in explaining the past and in hoping for a full breakout next season.

“Just I feel like if I’m presented with the opportunities to do such a thing, then I think I’ll always make the best of those opportunities,” Ebron said. “That’s my biggest thing, if I had more opportunities, then I think I would have been better.”

Interestingly, opportunities don’t mean more playing time. Over the last nine games of the season, Ebron averaged nine fewer snaps per game than he did in his unproductive first seven. But he was being used more. He was being targeted more.

And he was doing more with it. Ebron caught 71.7 percent of his targets. Dropped just one pass. Had only two games where he caught less than two-thirds of passes thrown at him. He made critical catches at critical times. Eleven of those catches over the last nine games came on third downs -- nine going for first downs.

All three of his touchdowns came on third down. So did two drops. The overall numbers, though, were a positive. For the first time, Ebron had a series of games where he felt he might have started to meet the expectations others had of him.

“Eric really, the last seven, eight weeks of the season really kind of turned it on,” general manager Bob Quinn said. “And really when you look at his play time over the course of the season, it actually went down over the course of the season but his production went up.

“I think he was really used effectively. He gained some confidence over the course of the season and he performed better.”

What happens next is up to Quinn. Ebron will cost the Lions $8.25 million next season. Quinn, when asked about Ebron’s future with Detroit in 2018 on Jan. 1, said the tight end was under contract. That same day -- before Quinn spoke -- Ebron admitted he didn’t know what would happen about his future.

But he did do one thing -- for half the season, he showed what he’s capable of.

“I feel like I did what everyone was waiting on,” Ebron said. “ ... I felt like I put together a series of games which everyone was waiting on. I felt like, just like I accomplished something. It’s hard to produce in the National Football League.

“With the opportunities that I was given, I felt like I made the best of it and it just goes to show with more opportunities, the better I’ll play, the better anyone will play, honestly. It’s just how I feel.”

Whether those future chances come in Detroit remains to be seen.