NFL All-Time Touchdown Leaders: Complete Rankings

Jerry Rice leads the NFL all-time touchdown list with 208 career touchdowns. His total was built almost entirely on receiving scores. That’s 33 more than second-place Emmitt Smith. This ranking counts rushing and receiving touchdowns, the standard way the NFL and its record books track career touchdown totals. Passing touchdowns get tracked on a completely separate leaderboard, one dominated by quarterbacks like Tom Brady instead.

This guide covers the complete rankings. It explains why quarterbacks mostly don’t appear on it and shows where today’s active leaders stand.

Methodology: How This List Is Ranked

This ranking counts rushing touchdowns plus receiving touchdowns, sourced from Pro Football Reference and current through the 2025 season. That’s the conventional definition of “touchdown leaders” used across NFL record books and broadcasts, distinct from the full breakdown of how touchdowns and every other scoring play work. A handful of players on this list also added a punt or kickoff return score here and there, which counts toward their total as well.

The Top 20 NFL All-Time Touchdown Leaders

Jerry Rice: A Lead Nobody’s Come Close To

Rice scored 208 career touchdowns, 197 of them receiving, during a 20-year run mostly with the 49ers. His lead over second place has actually grown over time. Emmitt Smith retired in 2004, and nobody active today sits within 80 touchdowns of Rice’s total. He also holds the postseason touchdown record separately, adding 22 more scores across his playoff career.

Emmitt Smith: The Rushing Touchdown King

Smith’s 175 total touchdowns break down to 164 rushing scores, still the NFL rushing touchdown record on its own. He added 11 receiving touchdowns on top of that. His volume came from Dallas’s power-running “Triplets” era, where Smith served as the featured back on three Super Bowl champions.

LaDainian Tomlinson: 145 Rushing Plus a Real Receiving Threat

Tomlinson’s 162 touchdowns split 145 rushing and 17 receiving. That’s a genuine dual-threat total that most running backs on this list cannot match. His 2006 season alone produced an NFL-record 31 touchdowns, a mark still standing nearly two decades later.

Randy Moss: The Deep Threat Who Almost Caught Rice

Moss finished with 157 total touchdowns, 156 of them receiving, second only to Rice among pure pass-catchers. He set the single-season receiving touchdown record with 23 scores for the undefeated 2007 Patriots, a mark that still stands.

Terrell Owens: Physical Dominance for Three Different Franchises

Owens scored 156 touchdowns, 153 receiving, spread across stops with the 49ers, Eagles, Cowboys, and two other teams. His combination of size and speed made him one of the most physically dominant receivers of his era. His career also included well-publicized conflicts with multiple franchises along the way.

Marcus Allen: Elite Production, Then a Public Falling Out

Allen’s 145 touchdowns include 123 rushing scores, built largely during his years with the Raiders. A feud with owner Al Davis limited his workload late in that run. He revived his career with the Chiefs afterward, adding to a total that still ranks sixth all-time.

Marshall Faulk: The Engine of the Greatest Show on Turf

Faulk’s 136 touchdowns came from a genuinely rare dual-threat role. He rushed and caught passes at an elite level simultaneously for the Rams’ record-setting offenses. His 2000 MVP season remains one of the most complete statistical performances by a running back in league history.

Cris Carter: 130 Receiving Scores for the Vikings

Carter finished with 131 touchdowns, 130 of them receiving, almost all of which were built during his time with Minnesota. He led the league in receiving touchdowns twice. He remains one of only a handful of receivers to clear 130 career scores.

Marvin Harrison: Peyton Manning’s Favorite Target

Harrison’s 128 touchdowns, all receiving, came almost entirely on throws from Peyton Manning during Indianapolis’s early-2000s peak. Their connection produced one of the most productive quarterback-receiver pairings in NFL history.

Derrick Henry: The Active Leader Still Climbing

Henry sits 10th all-time with 127 touchdowns. He remains the highest-ranked active player anywhere on this list. His 122 rushing touchdowns already rank among the best of any back in league history, and he’s still adding to the total with the Ravens.

Jim Brown and Adrian Peterson: Tied Across Two Very Different Eras

Brown and Peterson sit tied at 126 touchdowns apiece, despite playing nearly 50 years apart. Brown reached his total in just nine seasons before retiring at his peak in 1965. Peterson needed a 15-year career across seven teams to match him.

Walter Payton: 110 Rushing Scores Before Smith Passed Him

Payton’s 125 touchdowns include 110 rushing scores, compiled almost entirely with the Bears across a 13-year career. He held the all-time rushing yardage record before Smith broke it. His touchdown total still ranks among the best of any back in history.

Larry Fitzgerald: 121 Scores Without Ever Changing Teams

Fitzgerald reached 121 career touchdowns, every one of them receiving, without ever playing for a team apart from the Cardinals. His 17-year career produced steady, year-after-year output, catching touchdowns from a rotating cast of Arizona quarterbacks across two different decades.

Davante Adams: The Active Receiver Still Adding to His Total

Adams sits 15th all-time with 117 touchdowns and remains active heading into 2026. He led the league in receiving touchdowns multiple times during his prime with Green Bay. He’s continued producing after later moves to the Raiders and Jets.

Antonio Gates and John Riggins: A Tight End and a Bruising Back, Tied at 116

Gates reached 116 touchdowns entirely through the air, an unusually high total for a tight end who went undrafted out of college. Riggins reached the same number on the ground. His run included a Super Bowl XVII MVP performance built around a signature broken-tackle touchdown run.

Lenny Moore: 113 Scores Split Between Two Positions

Moore’s 113 career touchdowns came from a genuinely hybrid role with the Colts. He lined up as both a running back and a receiver well before that kind of positional flexibility became common. His versatility made him one of the most unusual offensive weapons of his 1950s and 1960s eras.

Shaun Alexander: 112 Touchdowns and an MVP Season

Alexander’s 112 touchdowns peaked with a 2005 MVP season for the Seahawks. That year he set what was then the NFL single-season rushing touchdown record. His prime with Seattle produced some of the most efficient goal-line production of his era.

Tony Gonzalez: The Tight End Standard

Gonzalez closed out the top 20 with 111 career touchdowns, all receiving, across stops with the Chiefs and Falcons. He redefined what a tight end could produce statistically. He finished his career as one of the position’s most complete receiving threats ever.

What About Quarterbacks? The Passing Touchdown Angle

Quarterbacks mostly don’t appear on this list because passing touchdowns get tracked separately from rushing and receiving scores. Tom Brady threw 649 career touchdown passes, the actual NFL record. He added 28 more on the ground for 677 total offensive touchdowns, once you count every way he put points on the board. That combined number would rank him above even Jerry Rice. The NFL’s conventional record books keep passing touchdowns on their leaderboard rather than merging the two, though. For the full picture of where quarterbacks rank in their own category, see sportDA’s NFL all-time passing yards leaders guide.

Active Leaders: Who’s Still Adding to Their Total

Derrick Henry and Davante Adams are the only two players inside the top 15 still active heading into 2026, sitting in 10th and 15th, respectively. Behind them, players like Travis Kelce, Christian McCaffrey, and Stefon Diggs sit further down the extended list. Each has a realistic path to climb several more spots before their career ends. For the fuller rushing-yardage context behind names like Henry and Peterson, see sportDA’s all-time rushing yards leaders guide.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who has scored the most touchdowns in NFL history?

Jerry Rice scored 208 career touchdowns, 197 of which were receiving. That total has stood as the record since his retirement and remains 33 touchdowns ahead of second-place Emmitt Smith.

Does this list include passing touchdowns?

No. This ranking covers rushing and receiving touchdowns only, the standard definition used across NFL record books. Passing touchdowns are tracked on a separate leaderboard led by Tom Brady’s 649.

Who is the highest-ranked active player on the all-time touchdown list?

Derrick Henry is sitting 10th all-time with 127 touchdowns heading into 2026. Davante Adams ranks 15th at 117.

How many total touchdowns did Tom Brady score, passing included?

677, combining his NFL-record 649 passing touchdowns with 28 rushing scores. That number isn’t part of the conventional rushing-and-receiving leaderboard, but it would rank above every player on this list if counted together.

What is the NFL single-season touchdown record?

LaDainian Tomlinson set it with 31 touchdowns in 2006, a mark that still stands nearly two decades later.

The NFL all-time touchdown leaders list is led by Jerry Rice’s 208, a number built almost entirely on receiving production that nobody has seriously threatened since he retired. Derrick Henry currently ranks 10th among active players, but the gap to the top of this list remains enormous. Whether you count Tom Brady’s passing touchdowns alongside it or not, Rice’s record has held for over two decades and shows no signs of falling soon.