To name Matthew Stafford as a Pro Football King of Comebacks since 2014 is undeniably befitting. He definitely stands among the renowned quarter-back come-back geniuses with the likes of Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, Drew Brees and Matt Ryan. According to Professional Football Reference, since the year 1960, he ranks 15th out of 250 quarterbacks with high statistics of 25 come-back wins. With age on his side, if he keeps his form up, there is definitely more to come.
The Detroit Lion’s quarterback was the 1st amongst those recruited in the National Football League 2009 drafting exercise and was tagged as the NFL player with most Come-back wins. Read on to learn more about his age, girlfriend, wife, brother, family and his kids.
Early Life and Career Achievements
Matt, as he is commonly called and known, was born on the 7th February 1988, in Tampa Florida. He grew up in Dallas, Texas with his family.
He attended Highland Park High School and later went to the University of Georgia, Athens, where he played college football. Matt was rated among the best who play the quarterback position in the United States. He made the starting line up within the university football team in his very first year of playing and was the Most Valuable Player and Best Arm award winner in 2005. Accordingly, he was tipped to be the first pick in the 2009 NFL Draft.
True to earlier predictions, when the NFL draft came in 2009, Matt Stafford was the number one pick on the 24th of April that year. He signed a $41.7 million six-year deal with the Detroit Lions, making him the highest-paid pro-footballer at the time. He was named as the team’s permanent starting quarterback of the season by the Lions coach Jim Schwartz when he outdid the team’s former starting quarterback Daunte Culpepper in the training sessions on September 9. Matt was awarded the NFC Offensive Player of the week and Pepsi Rookie of the Week, given his sterling performance in his debut week. He became the youngest player to score 5 touchdowns in the Lions’ game against Cleveland Browns in November 2009.
He was however sidelined by a knee injury on 24th December 2009. In his season as a rookie, Stafford made 13 touchdowns, passed for 2,267 yards and recorded 20 interceptions. In an opening game against the Chicago Bears, he suffered another injuring after throwing 83 yards early in the game, this was on September 12, 2010. This injury saw the quarterback watching from the sidelines until 31st October when his 4 touchdowns inspired a win against the Washington Redskins.
The dismal performance of the Detroit Lions the following years led to the firing of Jim Schwartz who was replaced by Jim Caldwell as head coach in 2014. The change in the coaching crew seemed to lift the performance of the Lions. Stafford finished with an impressive 4,257 passing yards and scored a QB rating of 85.7,12 interceptions and 22 touchdowns. In 2011, he was awarded Pro Football Weekly comeback player of the year and AP Come-back player of the year. He was also rated number 41 amongst top 100 NFL players of 2012. The football star has also been named the first quarterback to complete more than 60% of his passes in all the 16 games he played. He has had 25 comeback victories in his career from 2009 to 2016.
In the year 2017, Matthew Stafford became the most expensive pro footballer of the NFL, getting a whopping $135 million deal and extending his stay with the Lions for another five years.
Parents And Brother
Matthew Stafford parents are John Stafford and Margaret Stafford. His mum Margaret, helped him build his confidence in the game right from his high school to college games. Though she resides in Dallas, she has on several occasion made the trip to Detroit to support her son from the stands or watched the games, through the NFL Channel. Though he is the eldest of 5 siblings, his only known sibling is a sister, Page, an ace volleyball player in her high school days.
Although the name of Matthew Stafford’s biological brother is not known; he has a teammate and friend named Matt Ryan who he refers to as a brother and their relationship blossomed very quickly. They both got picked for the Pro Bowl of 2015 and later discovered that they have similitudes in hobbies and interests. Since then, they became close friends and have remained inseparable ever since. Matt Ryan has been in the NFL longer than Matt Stafford, therefore, he served as his mentor through tough decisions in the game as quarterback players. The friendship and bromance have equally be extended to the women in their lives Kelly and Sarah.
Is Matthew Stafford Married?
Matthew Stafford is happily married to Kelly Hall, his longtime sweetheart who is a former cheerleader in the University of Georgia, the same college where Matt played. She is a sister to NFL’s Buffalo Bills assistant coach and former Philadelphia Eagles Pro Footballer, Chad Hall. They met in the University of Georgia and married in Georgia on the 4th of April in 2015 in a star-studded wedding ceremony with NFL players, especially his Lion’s team-mates like; Golden Tate and Calvin Johnson all present.
Matthew and Kelly Stafford currently have three children – the identical twin girls and another baby girl, Hunter Hope Stafford, who they recently welcomed in St. Joseph Mercy Oakland Hospital, on the 16th of August, 2018. The names of the identical twin daughters are, Sawyer and Chandler. The twins were born on 31st March 2017.
Matthew Stafford possesses quite a good physique for the career path he has chosen, he stands at 6 feet 2 inches (1.88m) in height and weighs 220lb (100kg). His other body measurements are not available at the moment.
