Peyton Manning threw 112 regular-season touchdown passes to Marvin Harrison. That is the record for a quarterback and a wide receiver, and it is 27 more than the pair who held the record before them. A great quarterback-receiver duo is something stranger than two great players on one roster. It is two people who read the same coverage the same way at the same instant, for years at a time - and the best of them turned that into numbers no individual stat line can hold. Jerry Rice appears twice, one entry needs two receivers, and the shortest partnership here produced the highest peak. These are the ten greatest pairs in NFL history, ranked, with the record book behind every connection.
How We Ranked Them
Four tests, weighed together rather than in order, so titles and peak can outweigh volume. Production together - touchdowns first, because a touchdown connection is the one number that belongs to the pair rather than to either player, then completions and yards. How long it lasted, because a great season can be a hot streak. What it won, since January is when defenses get two weeks to plan for one pair. Peak, their best stretch together.
Era adjustment applies throughout: a connection in a league that ran on most downs is worth more than one in a league built to pass. Only wide receivers qualify, so the great quarterback-tight end pairs sit in a note at the end, and touchdown counts are regular season unless marked. For the quarterbacks on their own, start with the greatest quarterbacks in NFL history.
1. Peyton Manning and Marvin Harrison - Indianapolis Colts
112 touchdowns. 953 completions. 12,766 yards. 158 games.
Those are the Manning-to-Harrison numbers from 1998 through 2008, and when Manning retired they were the most completions, yards and touchdowns any duo had combined for. The old marks show the leap: Jim Kelly and Andre Reed had held the completion and yardage records at 663 and 9,538, and Steve Young and Jerry Rice the touchdown record at 85.
The middle of the run is untouchable. From 1999 through 2006 Harrison had at least 1,100 yards and 10 touchdowns in eight straight seasons. In 2002 he caught 143 passes, a single-season record that stood until Michael Thomas caught 149 in 2019. Three of Manning's MVP seasons - 2003, 2004 and 2008 - came with Harrison in the lineup, and in 2004, when Manning threw 49 touchdowns, Harrison caught 15.
The one argument against them is January. They connected for only two touchdowns in the playoffs, and when the Colts finally won Super Bowl XLI after the 2006 season, Manning's only touchdown pass of the night went to Reggie Wayne.
2. Steve Young and Jerry Rice - San Francisco 49ers
85 touchdowns in 137 games.
Young arrived from Tampa Bay in 1987 as Joe Montana's backup and did not get the job until an elbow injury cost Montana the entire 1991 season. Young to Rice tied Dan Marino and Mark Clayton's 79 in October 1998, passed it, and finished at 85, the mark Manning and Harrison would later break.
Young led the league in passer rating four straight years from 1991 to 1994 and won MVPs in 1992 and 1994, and Rice averaged better than 1,350 receiving yards across those four seasons.
Their masterpiece was Super Bowl XXIX. Rice caught a 44-yard touchdown on San Francisco's opening drive and finished with 10 catches for 149 yards and three scores, and Young threw six touchdown passes in a 49-26 win over San Diego, still the Super Bowl record. Rice is great enough to appear here twice, and his individual case leads the greatest wide receivers in NFL history.
3. Joe Montana and Jerry Rice - San Francisco 49ers
55 regular-season touchdowns, and 12 more in the playoffs.
Fewer regular-season scores than Young and Rice in six full seasons together, but more in January. Rice arrived as the 16th pick of the 1985 draft, and by Montana's back-to-back MVP seasons the partnership was the best in football: Rice caught 17 touchdowns in 1989 and 100 passes for 1,502 yards in 1990.
On October 14, 1990, in Atlanta, they had the list's best afternoon. Montana threw for 476 yards and six touchdowns, five of them to Rice, who finished with 13 catches for 225 yards in a 45-35 win. Five touchdown catches tied the NFL record.
Then the Super Bowls. In XXIII Rice caught 11 passes for a Super Bowl-record 215 yards and was named MVP. A year later in XXIV he caught three touchdowns as Montana threw five in a 55-10 rout of Denver. Two titles in two years keep this pair a whisker behind the one above.
4. Troy Aikman and Michael Irvin - Dallas Cowboys
Three Super Bowls in four seasons.
Dallas took Irvin 11th overall in 1988 and Aikman first overall a year later. In 1991 Irvin led the NFL with 1,523 receiving yards, and from 1991 through 1995 he never fell below 1,241. By Football Perspective's count, which includes the playoffs, Aikman threw 57 touchdowns to him.
The titles followed - Super Bowls XXVII, XXVIII and XXX, a run that sits among the greatest NFL dynasties of all time. The first was the pair's signature game. Aikman threw four touchdown passes and was named MVP of a 52-17 win over Buffalo, and two of them went to Irvin in a span of 18 seconds, the fastest pair of touchdowns by one player in Super Bowl history.
Irvin finished with 750 catches for 11,904 yards and 65 touchdowns. The volume does not match the three pairs above. The jewelry beats all of them.
5. Terry Bradshaw, Lynn Swann and John Stallworth - Pittsburgh Steelers
Four Super Bowl titles in six seasons.
The one entry with two receivers, because they arrived together: Swann in the first round and Stallworth in the fourth round of the 1974 draft, both now in the Hall of Fame. By Football Perspective's count, including the playoffs, Bradshaw threw 58 touchdowns to Swann and 53 to Stallworth.
The regular-season numbers are modest by modern standards. The Super Bowls are not. Swann was named MVP of Super Bowl X with four catches for 161 yards, including a 64-yard touchdown, two weeks after a concussion put him in the hospital, and became the first wide receiver to win the award. In Super Bowl XIII, Swann with 124 yards and Stallworth with 115 became the first teammates to both clear 100 receiving yards in a Super Bowl, while Bradshaw threw for 318 yards and four touchdowns, both records at the time. In XIV, Stallworth's 73-yard catch in the fourth quarter put Pittsburgh ahead for good, and the Steelers became the first franchise to win four Super Bowls.
Box scores like these are what Roll Call is built on: name everyone who threw, ran or caught a pass in a real playoff game.
6. Johnny Unitas and Raymond Berry - Baltimore Colts
A ninth-round cut and a 20th-round pick.
Pittsburgh drafted Unitas in the ninth round in 1955 and released him before the season. He spent that fall playing semipro football for $6 a game, and Baltimore signed him in 1956. Berry had been the Colts' 20th-round pick in 1954. They played twelve seasons together.
Berry was the most prepared receiver of his era. The Hall of Fame credits him with 88 different moves to get open and notes that he fumbled once in 13 seasons. He led the league in receptions three straight years and retired with 631, then the NFL record. Unitas won all three of his MVPs, in 1959, 1964 and 1967, with Berry on the roster.
The defining afternoon was the 1958 NFL Championship. Berry caught 12 passes for 178 yards, including three straight for 62 yards on the drive that sent the game to sudden death, and his 12 catches stood as a championship-game record for 55 years. The Colts beat the same Giants again the next year, 31-16. By Football Perspective's count, including the playoffs, the pair connected for 64 touchdowns.
7. Dan Marino and Mark Clayton - Miami Dolphins
79 touchdowns, the record until 1998.
Miami took both in the 1983 draft: Marino 27th overall and Clayton in the eighth round, 223rd. A year later they rewrote the record book together. In 1984 Marino threw for 5,084 yards and 48 touchdowns and won MVP, and Clayton led the league with 18 touchdown catches, a single-season record until Rice broke it in 1987. Mark Duper, the other half of the "Marks Brothers," added 1,306 receiving yards to Clayton's 1,389, and Miami went 14-2 before losing Super Bowl XIX to San Francisco.
That was Marino's only Super Bowl, and the missing title holds this pair at seventh. Marino and Clayton connected 79 times from 1983 to 1992, the most by any quarterback and receiver until Young and Rice caught them six years later.
8. Tom Brady and Randy Moss - New England Patriots
39 touchdowns in 37 games together.
The shortest partnership on this list produced its highest peak. New England got Moss from Oakland on April 29, 2007, for a fourth-round pick, and that season the pair broke two records on one play: a 65-yard touchdown against the Giants in the regular-season finale gave Brady his 50th touchdown pass, passing Manning's 49, and Moss his 23rd touchdown catch, passing Rice's 22. The Patriots finished 16-0 and scored 589 points, a record at the time, and Brady won his first MVP.
The perfect season ended with a 17-14 loss in Super Bowl XLII. Brady played one game in 2008. Moss caught 13 more touchdowns in 2009, and in 2010 he played for three different teams - New England, Minnesota and Tennessee - which makes his franchise-by-franchise trail one of the stranger answers in Career Path.
The total was 39 touchdown passes in 37 regular-season games together, more than one a game. On longevity this pair would miss the list. On peak, nobody here had a season like 2007.
9. Jim Kelly and Andre Reed - Buffalo Bills
663 completions, the record before Manning and Harrison.
Kelly was the 14th pick of the 1983 draft, spent two seasons in the USFL and reached Buffalo in 1986, a year after the Bills took Reed in the fourth round. Over 147 games they combined for 663 completions and 9,538 yards, both records until Manning and Harrison passed them, and 65 touchdowns. Reed's nickname was "YAC," for his yards after the catch.
They reached four straight Super Bowls, XXV through XXVIII, and lost all four, which is why they sit ninth. The strangest footnote is that Reed's most famous playoff game came without Kelly. With Kelly out with a knee injury and Frank Reich at quarterback, Reed caught eight passes for 136 yards and three touchdowns in the 32-point comeback against Houston in January 1993.
10. Aaron Rodgers and Davante Adams - Green Bay Packers and New York Jets
76 touchdowns across two franchises.
Rodgers had already won a Super Bowl when Green Bay took Adams in the second round of the 2014 draft. Over eight seasons together in Green Bay they connected for 622 completions, 7,590 yards and 69 touchdowns, the most of any quarterback-receiver pair in Packers history. They reunited on the Jets in 2024 for seven more, 76 in all.
The peak was 2020 and 2021, Rodgers's back-to-back MVP seasons. In 2020 Adams caught 18 touchdowns in 14 games, the most in the league.
The missing piece is the one that hangs over the back half of Rodgers's career. Green Bay lost the NFC Championship Game after the 2014, 2016, 2019 and 2020 seasons, all four with Adams, and the pair never played in a Super Bowl together. The production says higher. January says tenth.
Honorable Mentions
Peyton Manning and Reggie Wayne connected for 69 touchdowns, and Wayne caught the 53-yard touchdown that was Manning's only scoring pass in Super Bowl XLI.
Drew Brees and Marques Colston connected 72 times. Colston was the 252nd pick of the 2006 draft.
Kurt Warner and Isaac Bruce won Super Bowl XXXIV on a 73-yard touchdown with 1:54 left, as Warner threw for a then-record 414 yards.
Ben Roethlisberger and Antonio Brown - six straight 100-catch seasons for Brown, 2013 to 2018.
The tight ends. The title says wide receivers, so the tight ends get a footnote. Tom Brady and Rob Gronkowski connected for 90 regular-season touchdowns and 105 including the playoffs, nine short of Manning and Harrison's 114, and they did it for two franchises. Philip Rivers and Antonio Gates, and Patrick Mahomes and Travis Kelce, belong there too - all covered in the greatest tight ends in NFL history.
What the Great Pairs Share
Three things, and arm strength is not one of them.
The first is time. The last three holders of the touchdown record all got there by outlasting: Marino and Clayton over ten seasons, Young and Rice in 137 games, Manning and Harrison in 158. Timing routes are built on repetition.
The second is that the receiver was rarely a sure thing coming in. Clayton was an eighth-round pick, Berry a 20th-rounder, Stallworth and Reed fourth-rounders, Colston the 252nd player taken. Even Rice came from Mississippi Valley State. The quarterback found them as much as the scouts did.
The third is that January is cruel to the numbers. The pair with the most touchdowns in history connected twice in the playoffs. Montana and Rice, with far fewer in the regular season, found each other 12 times in the postseason and won two Super Bowls. Swann's MVP came on four catches. A duo is ranked on its body of work, but remembered for the afternoon a defense knew where the ball was going and still could not stop it.
Related Reading
- The Greatest Quarterbacks in NFL History, Ranked
- The Greatest Wide Receivers in NFL History, Ranked
- The Greatest NFL Dynasties of All Time, Ranked
- The Greatest Tight Ends in NFL History
Every pair above is a connection hiding in plain sight, which is the whole idea of our daily Connections puzzle: sort 16 players into four hidden groups before your wrong guesses run out. Then test your recall of the all-time leaderboards in Top 10.