Rodgers Passes Favre for Most TD Passes in Packers History
GREEN BAY, Wis. – Merry Christmas, Aaron Rodgers.
Rodgers threw the 443rd touchdown pass of his Green Bay Packers career on Christmas Saturday against the Cleveland Browns, knocking Brett Favre out of the top spot in franchise history.
An 11-yard touchdown pass to Allen Lazard on a third-and-5 in the first quarter was the record-breaker.
After the extra point, the team aired a montage of Rodgers highlights. Then, Rodgers was shown on the scoreboard and he saluted the cheering crowd. Finally, there was a short video message of Favre congratulating Rodgers and telling him to "Go get us another Super Bowl."
"It's a moment I'll never forget," Rodgers said after the game. "This is a special place."
Rodgers’ pursuit of the record was delayed by three years as he watched and learned from the three-time MVP. When Rodgers was handed the starting job in 2008, he had just one career touchdown pass – putting him 441 behind his predecessor when he made his first professional start on Monday Night Football against Minnesota on Sept. 8, 2008. That was 4,856 days ago.
“I didn’t think a lot about that back in the day,” Rodgers said on Tuesday. “I was just trying to get to the next thing and thought how cool it would be to play five or eight years in the league and figure out what I’m going to do next. Got to 10 and thought everything after that would be a pretty special deal.
“Seventeen years, a lot of years starting, just have a lot of gratitude for all the people who had an impact on me during the journey. It’s been a great journey, all the guys I’ve got to share rooms with and got to be coached by and got to throw to, some incredible players. It’s fun to look back and think about the guys that I’ve thrown touchdowns to. It’s definitely an interesting group of guys, great personalities, great players, just very fortunate and a lot of gratitude for all these 17 years.”
It's an incredibly meaningful record for Rodgers. The team’s controversial first-round pick in 2005, he and Favre didn’t exactly hit it off at the start. Three years later, he replaced Favre under the most intense of spotlights.
But their relationship has warmed greatly since Favre’s retirement. This week, Rodgers spoke with reverence about Favre and what he meant to his career.
“I have a lot of love for Favre-y and a lot of gratitude for the time I got to spend watching him,” Rodgers said. “Not a lot of the young quarterbacks are blessed with the opportunity to go to a team with a first-ballot Hall of Famer in the same room and to get to watch and learn for three years.
“Somebody asked me the other day, ‘Do you think things would’ve turned out the way they did had you been a starter in Year 1?’ And the obvious competitor in you and the confidence and the ego says, ‘Of course, of course, I definitely would’ve turned out this way.’ But I think the human element and the observer and the gratitude is understanding that things happen the way they happened to allow me to get in this position, and a lot of that is being able to sit behind Brett and watch one of the greatest players, competitors, quarterbacks of all-time do it for three years and then figure out how to do it on my own.”
Rodgers is fifth in NFL history in touchdown passes. The next milestone will be when he throws his 450th. Rodgers entered Saturday with 93 career interceptions. The interception totals when the other four threw their 450th: Tom Brady, 152; Peyton Manning, 209; Drew Brees, 211; Favre, 292.
Entering Saturday, Rodgers had thrown touchdown passes to 44 players. Davante Adams and Jordy Nelson had 65 apiece, followed by Randall Cobb (44), James Jones (41), Greg Jennings (38) and Donald Driver (22). Including Lazard, who hauled in his 10th scoring toss from Rodgers, 12 players have at least 10. Sixteen players had exactly one, including Josiah Deguara, Equanimeous St. Brown, Dominique Dafney and Malik Taylor on the current roster.
Last week, Adams caught his 65th career touchdown pass from Rodgers, matching Rodgers-to-Nelson as the most prolific scoring combo in franchise history. Interestingly, Nelson’s touchdowns gained 1,591 yards and averaged 24.5 yards. Adams’ touchdowns covered 885 yards and averaged 13.6 yards.
Adams broke that tie in the second quarter with a 9-yard touchdown on third-and-goal.
Rodgers has thrown 20-plus touchdowns against five teams: Chicago (61), Minnesota (54), Detroit (50), Atlanta (21) and San Francisco (20). He entered Saturday with six touchdowns in two games against Cleveland.
Rodgers’ milestone touchdowns: No. 1 to Jennings vs. Dallas in 2007, No. 100 to Jones vs. Atlanta in 2011, No. 200 to Adams vs. Minnesota in 2014, No. 300 to Ty Montgomery vs. Atlanta in 2017 and No. 400 to Adams vs. Philadelphia in 2020. The record-tying touchdown came last week to Marquez Valdes-Scantling.
Not bad for the guy who was in contention to go No. 1 overall to San Francisco in 2005 but fell all the way to No. 24.
“I feel like ultimately it was what was best for me,” Rodgers said of not being the top pick. “Not just to be able to learn behind Brett but to be picked by this organization to kind of have a resettling of the ego and the competitive drive and the work ethic of, ‘OK, now I’m in a room for the first time in my life with a guy who’s better than me. He throws it better. His mastery of the system is better. Instincts are better. Pocket presence is better.’ And that was great for me because I really got to see exactly what I needed to work on in order to become great, because my dreams and my aspirations and my drive was to be great.”
It's been a trying season for Rodgers, some of it self-inflicted with his misleading statement on his vaccination status. He missed one game after testing positive for COVID, and has barely practiced since his return due to a broken toe. He’s playing behind a bunch of backups on the offensive line, and trusted targets Robert Tonyan and Cobb are on injured reserve.
Yet the Packers entered the day leading the NFC playoff chase and with Rodgers a co-favorite to win his fourth NFL MVP. While Rodgers could have set the record last week at Baltimore, he was thrilled to get the opportunity to set the record in front of the home fans.
“The one thing I will say that he mentioned, which is one thing I’ve been really taking to heart the last couple of years, is he just said, ‘Enjoy it because it goes by so fast and, the next thing you know, it’s over,’” Rodgers said. “And it harkens to me to one of my favorite clips from The Office, one of my favorite TV shows, where Andy Bernard’s looking at the camera and, I’m paraphrasing here, ‘I wish they’d tell you you were in the good old days before you left them.’ I’ve often thought a lot about that – (and was) reminded by Favrey’s comment – but to just enjoy these times because these are the good old days and you never know when they’re going to be done and it goes by so quickly.”
