  Symmetric tridiagonal matrices appear ubiquitously in mathematical physics,
serving as the matrix representation of discrete random Schr\"odinger
operators. In this work we investigate the top eigenvalue of these matrices in
the large deviation regime, assuming the random potentials are on the diagonal
with a certain decaying factor $N^{-\alpha}$, and the probability law $\mu$ of
the potentials satisfy specific decay assumptions. We investigate two different
models, one of which has random matrix behavior at the spectral edge but the
other does not. Both the light-tailed regime, i.e. when $\mu$ has all moments,
and the heavy-tailed regime are covered. Precise right tail estimates and a
crude left tail estimate are derived. In particular we show that when the tail
$\mu$ has a certain decay rate, then the top eigenvalue is distributed as the
Frechet law composed with some deterministic functions. The proof relies on
computing one point perturbations of fixed tridiagonal matrices.
