By Michael Stets
Kelly Stafford, the wife of Lions quarterback Matthew Stafford, had a successful 12-hour brain surgery back in April to remove a benign tumor called an acoustic neuroma. She’s been on the mend since then, and has been giving regular updates on her recovery via her Instagram page.
Matthew, meanwhile, has been working out at the team facility since the Lions began their voluntary offseason workout program several weeks ago. And despite the Lions giving him their blessing to take as much time as needed to be with his wife and family, Stafford joined his teammates to start getting in shape for the upcoming 2019 season.
Stafford was a guest of The Mitch Albom Show on Wednesday (May 15, 2019) at Ford Field for Taste Of The Lions, the team’s annual event that helps raise money for the Eastern Market’s community outreach programming. The Lions quarterback spoke about his wife’s brain surgery and recovery for the first time.
“She’s doing good,” Stafford told Albom. “I think she’s kind of right where the doctors want her to be at this point of her recovery. We appreciated everybody’s well wishes, thoughts, prayers, all that. People have been really supportive and I know she and I really appreciate it.”
Now entering his eleventh season in Detroit, Stafford said it was a relief to get back to football.
“Yeah, no doubt,” he said. “It’s good to be back working with the guys. We got a bunch of new teammates. We got a bunch of really good players through free agency and then some young guys that we just picked up in the draft that are trying to make a name for themselves. So, every year is a different year and a new team and a bunch of new guys to try to get to know and try to be as good as we possibly can. That’s part of what makes this game so fun.”
The audio for the full Matthew Stafford interview on The Mitch Albom Show is located below:
