Stafford Breaks Lions' Record for Passing Touchdowns

Detroit Lions quarterback Matthew Stafford surpassed Hall of Famer Bobby Layne as his franchise's all-time leader in passing touchdowns. He broke the record during Sunday's 22-21 win over the Atlanta Falcons at London's Wembley Stadium.

Stafford, who was selected first overall by the Lions in the 2009 NFL draft, entered the game with 118 career passing touchdowns, the same number Layne had in his nine seasons in Detroit.

The Lions surprisingly trailed 21-0 at halftime of Sunday's game, but after leading the team to a field goal on its first drive of the second half, Stafford found wide receiver Golden Tate for the record-setting touchdown from 59 yards out.

The former Georgia Bulldog surpassed Layne in rather dramatic fashion, as the scoring pass came on a 3rd-and-25 with the Lions starting to get desperate.

Stafford later added the 120th touchdown pass of his career, finding running back Theo Riddick for an easy five-yard score with just three minutes and 56 seconds remaining to pull the Lions within two points.

Stafford then threw an incompletion in Tate's direction on the game-tying, two-point conversion attempt, but the Lions later got the ball back to drive for a game-winning, 48-yard field goal by kicker Matt Prater as time expired.

Though currently having one of the more modest statistical seasons of his career, Stafford is also the Lions' all-time leader in passing yards (19,673), completions (1,668) and pass attempts (2,796). His 83.5 passer rating, while mediocre in this era, is the best in franchise history among all quarterbacks with 500 or more pass attempts.

All statistics courtesy of pro-football-reference.com unless otherwise noted.