The 2024 NFL regular season schedule is set to be released next Wednesday night, May 15. Until then, with leaks sure to come in the day or so before, we won't know the exact weeks the Detroit Lions will play teams, when the bye week is, etc.
But we do know the Lions' home and road opponents for the 2024 season. The full-division crossovers for the NFC North are the NFC West and the AFC South this year, and the Lions will play last year's first-place teams from the NFC East, NFC South and AFC East.
That also means the Lions will play all three teams they played in last year's playoffs-the Los Angeles Rams, Tampa Bay Buccaneers and San Francisco 49ers. Another trip to take on the Dallas Cowboys is also on the slate. In total they'll play eight game against teams that made the playoffs last year, with a couple other games against teams that had a chance to make the playoffs right to the end.
Detroit's refurbished secondary will have some challenges against some proven good quarterbacks next season, with some promising young guys sprinkled in. These five stand out as the best signal callers they'll face.
5 best quarterbacks Lions will face on their 2024 schedule
5. Brock Purdy, San Francisco 49ers
Say what you want to about Kyle Shanahan being able to plug any quarterback into his offense and they'll have success, but Purdy has gotten it done and he got it done very well in his first full season as the starter last year (4,280 yards, 31 touchdowns, 11 interceptions, 113.0 passer rating, 72.8 QBR).
There's something to be said for doing what you're asked to do, and Purdy isn't the first quarterback to have tons of talent around him. He has shown poise befitting a more experience signal caller.
Purdy also flashed some ability to take off and run during the playoffs last year, which the Lions saw first-hand in the NFC Championship Game.
4. Dak Prescott, Dallas Cowboys
Due to being the Cowboys' quarterback, Prescott is an easy lightning rod whenever things go wrong in Dallas. After struggling more than usual in 2022, he rebounded to lead the league in passing touchdowns (36) and completions (410) last year, with 4,516 passing yards and just nine interceptions.
The Cowboy are putting a little contractual pressure on themselves by not yet committing to Prescott long-term (again). The last time they waited to see what the did before signing him to a new contract (2019), he went out and set a career-high for passing yards (4,910) with 30 touchdowns and 11 interceptions. A thumb injury seemed to impact his 2022 campaign even after he returned to action, and without that he'd likely be coming off three straight excellent seasons.
Prescott has weapons around him a lot of quarterbacks envy. The skeptical narrative around his team shouldn't diminish how good he is.
3. Jordan Love, Green Bay Packers
Love proved plenty capable in his first season as the Packers' starter, with some substantial growth late (23 touchdowns, three interceptions from Week 10 through the Wild Card Round). That has inspired a wild take, from someone who works for a Detroit-based outlet no less, that he's better than Jared Goff. I don't know about that, but Love has taken his place among the best young quarterbacks in the league.
With a youthful set of weapons who should only get better, and his own expected progress/refinement in Year 2 as the starter in Green Bay, Love gets a lofty spot on this list. Two games against him won't be layups for the Lions' defense.
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.