5 best quarterbacks on the Detroit Lions 2024 schedule

2. C.J. Stroud, Houston Texans

Stroud hit the ground running as a rookie last season, winning Offensive Rookie of the Year and leading the Texans to the AFC South title. He led the league in passing yards per game (273.9), with over 4,100 yards through the air, 23 touchdowns and just five interceptions in 15 regular season games.

Stroud showed himself to be the best quarterback in the 2023 draft class, dismissing the smokescreens that were a blatant attempt to get him to fall, and an instant team leader as the Texans rise from the ashes of how the Deshaun Watson era ended. It was a perfect marriage of player and team situation, and his situation got better with the addition of Stefon Diggs to the skill position group around him.

An appropriate, full-circle, Thanksgiving Day matchup for the Lions would be the Texans. A loss to Houston on Thanksgiving in 2020 led to the Lions' firing Matt Patricia and Bob Quinn the next day, which set the course for a new regime and a new era for the franchise. That aside, Stroud edged out those below him for the No. 2 spot here.

1. Josh Allen, Buffalo Bills

The Lions faced Allen on Thanksgiving, in 2022, in what was a narrow loss for them.

Allen is arguably the most sheerly talented quarterback in the NFL, able to beat you with his arm and his legs in virtually equal measure. The loss of Stefon Diggs may be addition by subtraction in an intangible sense, removing a constantly percolating headache from the situation in Buffalo. It does put more of the onus on Allen to carry the offense, but the sum of the skill position parts around him, even without Diggs, looks pretty solid. And Diggs was a non-factor after an offensive coordinator switch last season.

Lions-Bills, which will be in Detroit, reeks of a potential prime time/late-window Sunday afternoon game when the schedule comes out, with the appropriate networks clamoring for it or using their right to protect it from being poached to prime time as the schedule gets shaped.

Regardless of when the Bills are on the slate, Allen is the best quarterback the Lions will face during the 2024 regular season.