Jerry Rice appeared in 238 games over his illustrious career with the San Francisco 49ers. During that time, the Hall of Fame wide receiver, the greatest to ever play the game, racked up a franchise record 187 touchdowns. The next closest player is Terrell Owens, who earned 83 touchdowns through 121 games.
To give you a better perspective of just how dominant Rice was in his time with the 49ers, Greg Harvey of Stats Platform and OptaStats shared the following evolving timeline of the team's leading scorers since the franchise joined the NFL in 1950 (h/t Pro Football Hall of Fame for the find).
You can watch the video below. It shows how quickly Rice leaped to the top of the list, where he comfortably remains today.
With the 2023 NFL season approaching, I'm starting a new timeline graphic series that focuses on All-Time TD leaders for each franchise!
1st up are the @49ers, who joined the NFL in 1950. The leading scorer in franchise history is @JerryRice 🏈
Data via OptaSTATS 📈 pic.twitter.com/fPXaJV8C4r
— Greg Harvey (@BetweenTheNums) June 19, 2023
For some more perspective, here are the franchise touchdown leaders of the 49ers' active players.
Player | Gms | Rush | Rec | Tot | |
1. | George Kittle, since 2017 | 82 | 0 | 31 | 31 |
2. | Deebo Samuel, since 2019 | 51 | 14 | 12 | 26 |
3. | Brandon Aiyuk, since 2020 | 46 | 2 | 18 | 20 |
4. | Kyle Juszczyk, since 2017 | 91 | 4 | 9 | 13 |
5. | Christian McCaffrey, since 2022 | 11 | 6 | 4 | 10 |