The National Football League (NFL) player who scored most touchdowns during his career was wide receiver Jerry Rice Snr., a.k.a. ‘Flash 80’, who ‘broke the plane’ 208 times for San Francisco 49ers, Oakland Raiders and Seattle Seahawks between October 6, 1985 and December 19, 2004.
Born in Starkville, Mississippi on October 13, 1962, Rice was a first-round pick by the San Francisco 49ers in 1985 and, two seasons later, was named NFL Player of the Year after setting a single-season record of 22 touchdown receptions, despite only playing 12 games. He would spend most of his career at Candlestick Park, scoring 187 touchdowns for the 49ers and playing on Super Bowl championship teams in 1988, 1989, and 1994. Indeed, he scored one touchdown in a 20-16 victory over Cincinnati Bengals in Super Bowl XXIII, three in a 55-10 drubbing of Denver Broncos in Super Bowl XXIV and three more in a 49-26 defeat of San Diego Chargers in Super Bowl XXIX.
In 2001, Rice was traded, controversially, to Oakland Raiders, for whom he would score a further 18 touchdowns, including one in a 48-21 defeat by Tampa Bay Buccaneers in Super Bowl XXXVII. Before halway in th 2004 season, he was traded, at his own request, to Seattle Seahawks, for whom he would play only a marginal role, scoring three touchdowns, before being released at the end of the season. Rice spent the 2005 preseason with Denver Broncos but, having failed to make the starting line-up, subsequently signed a symbolic, one-contract – nominally worth $1,985,806.49, but for which he received nothing at all – with San Francisco, thereby retiring as a 49er.