“When He Got Drafted, I Didn’t Think We’d Last”: Matthew Stafford’s Wife Revisits the Couple’s Turbulent Dating Days

Matthew Stafford had a great time during his three years at the University of Georgia from 2006 to 2008. Not only on the football field, where he was a First-Team All-American in his final year and the No. 1 overall pick in the ensuing NFL Draft. But also off it, where being the starting QB made him popular with the ladies.

But Stafford is a sweet, Southern boy. He kept his eyes on one special lady: his future wife, Kelly Stafford (nee Hall). Even a small hiccup, when Kelly briefly dated the backup quarterback to make Matthew jealous, couldn’t keep them apart. They were the classic quarterback-and-cheerleader couple, and they’ve been going strong for 17 years and counting.

They tied the knot in 2015 and now have a happy family with four daughters. But according to Kelly, things started out a bit rocky when Stafford first entered the NFL as the QB of the Detroit Lions in 2009.

In fact, Kelly says that she wasn’t confident that they would stay together. However, after doing long distance for a bit, Stafford asked Kelly to come up to live with him in Detroit.

“We were dating. To be honest, when he got drafted, I didn’t think we’d last past … I don’t know, I was hoping, I was hopeful obviously,” Kelly said in an episode of Sunday Sports Club Podcast.

“We were dating, did the long distance … He went up to Michigan, I stayed at Georgia, we did long distance, and then kind of got tired of that and he said, ‘Do you wanna move up here?’ Which was a big move… there was no ring involved, I was young, I had not finished school,” she added.

However, that was not that. Kelly was a Southern belle. Her family (specifically, her father) didn’t love the idea of her going up to Michigan to commiserate with godless Yanks. But she went anyway, and she found another reason to go to the Great Lake State: a nursing program. Another thing (on top of Stafford) that Georgia didn’t have and Michigan did.

“I was raised in a Southern home, and my dad was like, ‘Absolutely not.’ And I kind of just went against what he said,” Kelly said, laughing. “I was like, ‘Sorry, I’m still gonna go.’ One of the things that pulled me too was, Georgia didn’t have a nursing school, I wanted to be a nurse, there was a school in Michigan, Oakland University, that had a great nursing program.”

They were together for four or five years before Stafford finally proposed to Kelly. She said that she and her dad had agreed if he hadn’t done it by the summer of 2014, she would have returned to Georgia. As always, Matthew Stafford came in clutch.