With his final touchdown pass of the 1975 season, Fran Tarkenton broke the record for all-time touchdown passes in the NFL, with 291, breaking a record established by Johnny Unitas in 1972. On 11/14/1976, against the Seattle Seahawks, Tarkenton became the first player to pass for 300 career touchdowns.
When he retired after the 1978 season, it would be five more seasons before the next player to throw for 300 career touchdowns even started his career, when Dan Marino debuted for the Dolphins in 1983. Two other quarterbacks who played while Dan Marino was active–John Elway (who started the same year as Marino, and retired a year earlier) and Brett Favre (who started in 1991). Elway ended his career with 300 touchdowns exactly, and threw his 300th (along with numbers 297-299) in his final game–meaning it was less than a full game that the NFL saw two active quarterbacks with 300 career passing touchdowns.
Favre threw his 300th career touchdown pass on October 13th, 2002, and retired after the 2010 season, meaning when Peyton Manning threw his 300th TD pass on December 9th, 2007, the NFL for the first time had two players active (for an extended time) with 300+ touchdown passes. While Manning (sitting at 536 after today) eventually passed Favre’s final tally of 509, he sat alone as a member of the 300 club until January 1, 2012, when Tom Brady joined the club. As a testament to how much the game has changed, for the first time ever the club expanded to three active members on October 28th, 2012, when Drew Brees threw his 300th career TD.
Even more incredible? As of tonight, with his overtime TD pass to CJ Spiller to beat the Cowboys, Brees also joined the 400 career TD pass club–just one week after Brady joined it against the Jaguars. So less than 8 years after the first time the NFL had two active quarterbacks with 300 career touchdowns at the same time, the league now has THREE active quarterbacks with 400 career passes. While it would seem unlikely, both could conceivably crack 500, if they can continue to play at their current levels for 3-4 more seasons.
On top of that, four more quarterbacks (Eli Manning, 266; Philip Rivers, 260; Ben Roethlisberger, 255; Tony Romo, 245) could also conceivably surpass 300 career TDs in the next 2-3 years if they continue to play. Unreal.
