Heading into the franchise's 95th season in 2024, the Detroit Lions have of course had a lot of starting quarterbacks over their history. For the last decade-plus though, after Matthew Stafford shook off an injury-plagued start to his career, they've basically had two (Stafford and Jared Goff).
But the overall list is fairly eclectic. First-round busts, retreads, a future head coach, a future Super Bowl starter filling in for a Hall of Famer who ended up with three Super Bowl rings as a backup, even a future prominent college football analyst.
Here is the full list of starting quarterbacks the Detroit Lions have had in their history (starting as the Portsmouth Spartans from 1930-1933 of course).
Notes:
- The number of starts is regular season starts.
- "Games started" data is tough to pin down from the very early days of the NFL, so where it was iffy I've either not included it or put an asterisk
- As best as possible, with overlapping years, I've put the quarterbacks chronologically based on the first year each quarterback started a game for the Lions
- The years or year spans are over which someone made starts for the Lions, not necessarily their entire career with the team
Every starting quarterback in Detroit Lions history: Full list
- Chuck Bennett (1930)
- Glenn Pressnell (1931-1936; 41 starts*)
- Dutch Clark (1931-1937; 49 starts*)
- Vern Huffman (1938; 8 starts)
- Bill Sheppard (1938; 3 starts)
- Johnny Pingel (1939; 9 starts)
- Darrell Tully (1939; 1 start)
- Dwight Sloan (1939-1940; 2 starts)
- Byron White (1940-1941; 16 starts)
- Cotton Price (1940-1945; 6 starts)
- Billy Jefferson (1941; 1 start)
- Harry Hopp (1942; 5 starts)
- Chet Wetterlund (1942; 3 starts)
- Tommy Colella (1942; 2 starts)
- Murray Evans (1942; 1 start)
- Frank Sinkwich (1943-1944; 13 starts)
- Chuck Fenenbock (1943,1945; 8 starts)
- Bob Westfall (1944; 1 start)
- Dave Ryan (1945-1946; 11 starts)
- Jim Callahan (1946; 7 starts)
- Roy Zimmerman (1947; 7 starts)
- Joe Margucci (1947; 1 start)
- Clyde LeForce (1947-1949; 6 starts)
- Frank Enke (1948-1949; 16 starts)
- Frank Tripucka (1949; 4 starts)
- Bobby Layne (1950-1958; 84 starts)
- Jim Hardy (1952; 1 start)
- Tom Dublinski (1953-1954; 5 starts)
- Harry Gilmer (1955; 2 starts)
- Tobin Rote (1958-1959; 23 starts)
- Earl Morrall (1959-1964; 26 starts)
- Jim Ninowski (1960-1961; 18 starts)
- Milt Plum (1962-1967; 52 starts)
- George Izo (1965; 3 starts)
- Karl Sweetan (1966-1967; 16 starts)
- Bill Munson (1968-1975; 48 starts)
- Greg Landry (1968-1978; 84 starts)
- Joe Reed (1975-1977, 1979; 11 starts)
- Gary Danielson (1977-1978,1980-1982,1984; 52 starts)
- Jeff Komlo (1979, 1981; 16 starts)
- Jerry Golsteyn (1979; 1 start)
- Eric Hipple (1981-1986, 1989; 57 starts)
- John Witkowski (1984; 1 start)
- Joe Ferguson (1985-1986; 5 starts)
- Chuck Long (1986-1988; 21 starts)
- Todd Hons (1987; 3 starts)
- Rusty Hilger (1988; 9 starts)
- Bob Gagliano (1989-1990; 11 starts)
- Rodney Peete (1989-1993; 47 starts)
- Andre Ware (1990, 1992, 1993; 6 starts)
- Erik Kramer (1991-1993; 15 starts)
- Scott Mitchell (1994-1998; 57 starts)
- Dave Krieg (1994; 7 starts)
- Don Majkowski (1996; 2 starts)
- Frank Reich (1998; 2 starts)
- Charlie Batch (1998-2001; 46 starts)
- Gus Frerotte (1999; 6 starts)
- Stoney Case (2000; 1 start)
- Ty Detmer (2001; 4 starts)
- Mike McMahon (2001-2002; 7 starts)
- Joey Harrington (2002-2005; 55 starts)
- Jeff Garcia (2005; 5 starts)
- Jon Kitna (2006-2008; 36 starts)
- Dan Orlovsky (2008; 7 starts)
- Daunte Culpepper (2008-2009; 10 starts)
- Matthew Stafford (2009-2020; 165 starts)
- Drew Stanton (2009-2010, 4 starts)
- Shaun Hill (2010; 10 starts)
- Jeff Driskel (2019; 3 starts)
- David Blough (2019; 5 starts)
- Tim Boyle (2021; 3 starts)
- Jared Goff (2021-present; 48 starts as of end of the 2023 season)