The five receivers who caught the most touchdown passes from Drew Brees, including Michael Thomas and all-time TE

The five pass catchers who caught the most TDs from Drew Brees

5. Robert Meachem – 26 Touchdowns

Robert Meachem was the New Orleans Saints’ first-round draft pick in 2007, just a year after Brees had arrived in 2006. He missed his entire rookie season due to knee surgery, but would become a role player for the Saints for multiple years.

Meachem caught nine touchdown passes in the Saints’ victorious 2009 season, but his greatest play came on a Drew Brees interception. In a game against the Washington Redskins, Brees was picked off over the middle of the field. Meachem then stripped the ball from the defender and took it the other way for a touchdown.

The Saints won the Super Bowl that year, and Meachem’s play was one of the very best of the entire season.

4. Michael Thomas – 33 Touchdowns

Michael Thomas is arguably the biggest superstar receiver Drew Brees played with. The Saints quarterback didn’t play with many elite pass catchers in his long-tenured career in the NFL, and Thomas is the only All-Pro wide receiver in franchise history.

The early years of his career were phenomenal. He arrived a year after Marques Colston left, and the Saints needed a star. Thomas answered the bell, with 1,137 receiving yards and nine touchdowns in his rookie season.

Two years later he was named a first-team All-Pro for the 2018 season, having led the NFL in receptions amidst a 1,405-yard, nine-touchdown season. One year later he was named the NFL Offensive Player of the Year, earning first-team All-Pro honors a second time with a career high 1,725 receiving yards and nine scores. He led the league again in receptions that year, but sadly, that was the peak of his career.

Injuries then played a major role from that moment on. Thomas missed the majority of the 2020 season, Brees’s final year in the league, and was out for the entirety of the 2021 season due to complications of an ankle injury.

3. Lance Moore – 39 Touchdowns

Lance Moore was a playmaker. He was tough, and the Saints fans loved him.

He was initially an undrafted free agent who signed with the Cleveland Browns in 2005, but he got cut, and the Saints picked him up. The Toledo product was with the franchise for three seasons before he really broke out, with just 33 receptions and two touchdowns in those first three years combined.

Then in 2008, he stepped up. Marques Colston had missed some time with a broken thumb, and Moore assumed the role. He caught a career-high 10 touchdown passes that season, leading the team with 928 receiving yards.

He missed a lot of the 2009 Super Bowl season with various injuries, but battled back and played in the Super Bowl, with two catches for 21 yards.

Over the next few years, he continued to feature in the Saints’ offense, with a career high 1,041 receiving yards in 2012.

2. Jimmy Graham – 54 Touchdowns

Jimmy Graham was an experiment for Sean Payton and the New Orleans Saints, who arrived after the Super Bowl season in the 2010 NFL draft. He was a basketball player, who had played college hoops for four seasons at the University of Miami. He then stayed on to take extra classes for one more year, and opted to play football.

Graham caught 17 passes for 213 yards, but he did manage to score five touchdowns. Payton loved his hand-eye coordination and his athletic frame, and drafted him in the third round of the 2010 draft in what was a high risk move.

It paid off massively, with Graham forming an immediate connection with Brees. He caught five touchdowns as a rookie, but in his second year, Graham had a career high 1,310 receiving yards and 11 touchdowns.

He was consistent for several more years with the franchise, with at least nine touchdowns in four straight years, including his league-leading 16 TDs in 2013. He was named a first-team All-Pro that season.

Graham caught 54 of his 89 career touchdowns from Drew Brees.

1. Marques Colston – 76 Touchdowns

Marques Colston is the New Orleans Saints’ all-time leading receiver, in both receiving yards and touchdowns.

While he never received a single Pro Bowl or All-Pro recognition, he was a consistent playmaker for Drew Brees and the Saints for many years.

Colston was drafted in the 7th round of the 2006 NFL draft, having played college football at Hofstra. He formed an immediate connection with Brees in their first season together, with 1,038 receiving yards and eight touchdowns as a rookie.

In his first seven seasons in the league, Colston had a 1,000 yard season six times, including that all important 2009 season.

Colston caught seven passes for 83 receiving yards in the Super Bowl against the Colts, earning himself a ring in the process.

Brees has always praised his all-time leading receiver, calling him a stud and saying he was always ‘such a pro.’

The two hold the record for the most touchdowns between a quarterback and wide receiver in New Orleans Saints history, a record unlikely to be broken anytime soon.