Peyton Manning threw his 500th touchdown on Sunday. Only Brett Favre (508) has thrown more, but (for now anyway) Farve is finished and Manning seems like he’s just hitting his stride some weeks, even at 38. To give some perspective on the 500 figure, John Elway only threw 300 touchdowns and Joe Montana just 273. Tom Brady? 365 sixes, though he doesn’t look as fresh this year as his contemporary Manning. Or here’s even more perspective–courtesy of Chase Stuart at, appropriately, FootballPersepective.com: four teams haven’t even reached the 500 passing TD mark.
Stuart also points out another fact that Cleveland fans know instinctively, if they don’t necessarily have the data on hand. It took the Browns the last 31 years to pass for 500 touchdowns–albeit during three of those years the Browns weren’t around, having to be revived after the original franchise moved to Baltimore. (So 28 seasons.) Stuart points out that it took 36 Browns quarterbacks to pass for them, too. That’s an average of about 14 TDs per QB over the span. Manning ended the day having thrown 503 touchdowns in his career–probably just a game away from Favre. In 2013 Manning threw 55 touchdowns, outdoing his 2007 self, when he threw 49.