Deion Sanders Holds the NFL Record for Return Touchdowns

Deion Sanders scored 19 touchdowns on returns, an NFL record, intercepted 53 passes, and won two Super Bowls with two different teams. He is also the only person who has played in both a Super Bowl and a World Series.

Sanders was Defensive Player of the Year in 1994, made eight Pro Bowls and was first-team All-Pro six times. He won Super Bowl XXIX with San Francisco and Super Bowl XXX with Dallas in consecutive years, joining each team as the piece that turned a contender into a champion. His nine interception returns for touchdowns are tied for second all-time.

The interception total is the wrong way to measure him, and that is the argument. An interception requires a quarterback willing to throw it. Coordinators stopped throwing at Sanders entirely, which meant his best games were often statistically silent: no targets, no tackles, one half of the field simply deleted from the opponent playbook for three hours.

That is what no other cornerback has done for a full career. Most great corners take away a receiver. Sanders took away a geography. An offense that cannot use one side of the field is playing on a narrower pitch, and every route concept that needs width stops existing. Teams built entire game plans around avoiding him and mostly executed them, which is the compliment.

The counterarguments are real and they attack the same weakness. Sanders did not want to tackle and was frequently poor at it, which matters in a sport where a corner is the last man on a run to the edge. Rod Woodson was the complete player: 71 interceptions, and he would come up and hit somebody. Dick Lane intercepted 14 passes in a twelve-game rookie season in 1952, a record nobody has approached. Mel Blount was so physical that the league changed the contact rules to stop him.

Woodson has the better all-around case and Lane has the single most untouchable record at the position. But pure coverage is the job description, and nobody has ever covered like Sanders, who did it while returning kicks, returning punts, and playing major league baseball in the same calendar year.

The verdict: Deion Sanders for coverage. Rod Woodson for the complete game. Dick Lane for the record.