Rodgers Passes Manning in Paris: TD No. 540 Makes Him Third All-Time in the NFL's First Game in France

PARIS

The throw traveled four yards. The ground it covered in the record book was considerably longer.

Facing second-and-goal from the New Orleans 4 in the second quarter at Stade de France, Aaron Rodgers floated a fade to tight end Darnell Washington, who out-muscled Saints cornerback Kool-Aid McKinstry at the catch point and got both feet down in the corner of the end zone. The touchdown — Rodgers’ 540th in the regular season — broke his tie with Peyton Manning and gave him sole possession of third place on the NFL’s all-time passing touchdown list, behind only Tom Brady (649) and Drew Brees (571).

It was set up by the kind of play that has defined Rodgers for two decades. One snap earlier, backed up on third-and-14 after a penalty, he hit DK Metcalf downfield for 51 yards to the New Orleans 4. Two plays, 55 yards, one record.

The record drive was also an answer. Minutes earlier, Pittsburgh’s T.J. Watt had slammed Tyler Shough to the turf and come away with the ball on what was ruled a strip-sack and recovery — until expedited replay review ruled Shough down by contact. New Orleans kept the ball, kicked a 38-yard field goal to tie the game 3-3, and Rodgers took the field and took the lead back with history attached.

The list, and where he stops

The company is the story now. Brady’s 649 is not being caught by anyone playing today. Brees sits 31 ahead of Rodgers, who would need 32 more touchdowns to pass him — at three a game for the rest of the schedule, in a season with ten games left after today. Third place is, in all likelihood, where the 42-year-old finishes: the summit of everyone who ever played the position except the two most prolific passers in history.

Rodgers knew the math coming in. He needed 13 touchdown passes this season to pass Manning, and joked with CBS Sports’ Bryant McFadden during training camp that if he couldn’t manage that, he’d probably be on the bench. Sunday’s fade to Washington was his 13th of the season — delivered in Week 7, on another continent.

It is also the second time in three weeks he has passed Manning, which tells you something about how these lists work. In Week 5 against Indianapolis, Rodgers moved ahead of Manning on the combined regular-season and playoff list with his 580th total touchdown pass, an 80-yard catch-and-run by Jaylen Warren on which Rodgers took a heavy hit. "Any time you’re mentioned in the same sentence as Peyton, it definitely means a lot to me," he told CBS sideline reporter Tracy Wolfson that day. Sunday’s pass was the one that counts in the record book — the regular-season list, the one that will be printed next to his name forever.

The breakdown of the 540 is a career in three acts: 475 for Green Bay, where he succeeded Brett Favre — the man now directly below Manning on the list at 508 — and became the franchise’s all-time leader; 28 for the New York Jets in 2024; and 37 for Pittsburgh since 2025.

A record on new soil

The NFL has taken regular-season games to London, Munich, Frankfurt, São Paulo, Mexico City, Toronto and Dublin. Sunday was the first one in France, at the national stadium in Saint-Denis, and the league could not have scripted a better souvenir: a permanent line in its record book, written in its newest market, by the oldest starting quarterback in the league, who will turn 43 in December.

Rodgers wore the game’s Paris patch on his chest and spent the afternoon doing what the occasion asked of him. Pittsburgh came in 4-2, winners of two straight, in a four-team AFC North pileup, and coach Mike McCarthy had said the quiet part out loud before the trip: the point of the week was to "come back 5-2." The Saints, 2-4, answered the record touchdown the way they had answered everything in the first half — stubbornly. Shough drove them 52 yards, survived two fumbles at the goal line, and found Devaughn Vele on fourth-and-1 to tie the game 10-10 inside the final two minutes of the half.

The farewell tour collects a record

All of it lands differently because of what Rodgers has already told us. When he re-signed with Pittsburgh in May, he announced that the 2026 season — his 22nd — would be his last. "Yes. This is it," he said, in ESPN’s account of that press conference. At training camp he removed whatever doubt remained: "zero debate." The honest asterisk is that he had said he was "pretty sure" 2025 would be the end, too — and then Mike Tomlin stepped away, the Steelers hired Mike McCarthy, the coach Rodgers won a Super Bowl with in Green Bay, and he opened his mind back up to one more year.

Pittsburgh closed it out from there, winning 16-10 on three Chris Boswell field goals around the record throw; Rodgers finished 19 of 30 for 212 yards with the one touchdown — No. 540 — and no interceptions, and the Steelers fly home 5-2.

So the farewell season now has its signature entry. A quarterback in his final autumn, playing for the coach from his prime, took his team to a country the NFL had never played in and used the afternoon to climb past Peyton Manning into third place all-time. Whatever the second half in Paris brings, the record is already written — and for the rest of this season, every touchdown pass Rodgers throws only pads a number nobody behind him is close to reaching.

By the Numbers

• 540 — career regular-season touchdown passes for Aaron Rodgers, third in NFL history
• 539 — Peyton Manning’s total, passed on Sunday
• 649 / 571 — Tom Brady and Drew Brees, the only two men ahead of Rodgers
• 32 — touchdown passes Rodgers needs to pass Brees (he trails him by 31)
• 4 — yards on the record throw, a second-quarter fade to Darnell Washington
• 51 — yards on Rodgers’ third-and-14 strike to DK Metcalf that set up the record play
• 13 — touchdown passes for Rodgers this season; he entered the year needing exactly 13 to pass Manning
• 475 / 28 / 37 — the 540 split: Green Bay, the New York Jets, Pittsburgh
• 1st — NFL regular-season game played in France

Full box score and play-by-play: Game Center — Pittsburgh Steelers at New Orleans Saints.