All-Time NFL Touchdown Scorers

The thinking was at one time that Jim Brown's National Football League record of 126 career touchdowns was the Mount Everest of standards for the sport, but much has changed since then. Brown set his record over a nine year period, from 1957 through 1965, before retiring at the age of 30 in 1966. The closest player to Jim Brown on the career touchdowns list was Lenny Moore of the Baltimore Colts and the Green Bay Packer receiver Don Hutson; Moore had 104 touchdowns when Brown left the game and Hutson had 102, the mark that Brown broke. But today, Jim Brown does not even stand in the top five in this category, as the offensive prowess of receivers and running backs alike has sent him all the way down the roster to sixth place. And as hard to believe as it might seem, the current record holder may only be keeping the mark warm as it could be in real jeopardy in a few seasons.

The career leader for touchdowns is Jerry Rice, the long time 49ers wide receiver who finished his twenty years in pro football with the Raiders and then the Seahawks. Rice scored an amazing 207 touchdowns, all but ten of those on passes. He is well ahead of the second man on the inventory, Emmitt Smith of the Cowboys and Cardinals, who scored 175. While Smith is still 32 touchdowns in back of Rice, he wound up 31 ahead of the third all-time touchdown scorer, Marcus Allen, who had 144. Next up is Marshall Faulk of the Rams, with 136, a pair in front of Cris Carter, the former wide receiver from the Eagles, Vikings, and Dolphins. Brown was knocked into the sixth spot by these players, where he held off the late Walter Payton of the Bears, who had 125 touchdowns over his thirteen campaigns. A pair of active receivers comes next, with the Colts' Marvin Harrison at 123, all through the air, and the Cowboys' Terrell Owens at 119. John Riggins rounds out the top ten touchdown scorers in NFL history, having made it to paydirt 116 times.

The only realistic threat to Rice would seem to be the Chargers LaDainian Tomlinson, who is already in eleventh all-time with his 112 touchdowns in just six full seasons, along with the beginning of the 2007 schedule. Tomlinson is 27 years old, and if he were to average fifteen touchdowns a year for the next six seasons, he would find himself only a handful behind Rice, a very real possibility. Tomlinson set the single season record just last year when he crossed the goal line with the pigskin on 31 separate occasions, shattering the standard that the Seahawks' Shaun Alexander had established one year prior. Alexander's 28 touchdowns had eclipsed the 27 put up by the Chiefs' Priest Holmes in 2003, which was a single score better than Marshall Faulk's 25 in 2000. The top five single seasons for touchdowns is completed by Emmitt Smith, who had 25 in 1995.

The most that the indomitable Brown tallied in one season was his 21 in 1965, his last year in the NFL before he shocked the sports' world with his premature departure from the game. Brown played in an NFL that had a twelve game schedule for its teams until 1961, when it then went to fourteen games. This means that Jim, who never missed a contest in his nine years, averaged more than a touchdown a game, as he scored 126 in 118 games. In comparison, Rice scored his 207 in 303 tilts, and Smith needed 226 games to get his 175. Tomlinson on the other hand has played in just 97 NFL games, meaning that his 112 touchdowns has him ahead of even Brown's fantastic pace, further allowing the idea that he will someday overtake Jerry Rice, which just a few years ago was almost impossible to think could happen.