“Many good memories here”

DETOR – On this day, the roaring crowds at Ford Field are replaced by laughing girls applauding “go lions”.

The normally crowded stadium is essentially empty, as Matthew Stafford and his family have been fired. The now Detroit Lions quarterback still can’t get his head around it.

“It’s crazy. Viously, obviously, you know, thinking it’s probably going to be the last time I’ve been here at least for a long time,” he said. “I have a lot of great memories here. There are also very difficult ones ”.

Ford Field and Detroit have been at the home of Matthew and his wife, Kelly Stafford, for 12 years.

“Life as I know it now, you know, came to be in Detroit, you know, married, kids. All in all, ”Matthew said.

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Kelly looks back and gets a little excited too.

“I think the first time I came here I was 19 and, to look at it possibly for the last time, I feel like I don’t know, that I’m pulling too far back,” he said.

Matthew said there are games he will never forget.

“I still remember it, we played in the Chargers in 2011 and we made the playoffs, we got the playoffs here at home for the first time in a lot of years and I will never forget people,” he recalled.

“Oh, there are a lot of them. I mean, what comes to my mind when you say that at the top would be, you know, when the Packers hit this Ave Maria on Thursday night after we won Thanksgiving, ”he said.

When we saw him fall and rise again, just like Detroit, the city he adopted, we knew Matthew is tough. It is durable. We may not always have liked the result, but the man appreciated the fight.

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I asked him how much it cost him the decision to leave.

“Oh, probably the toughest conversation I’ve ever had in my life, you know, you know it was, it was a very hard and very hard deal. I have to give the Lions a lot of credit for the way they handled it. I have all the respect in the world for the Ford family, ”he said.

I asked him if that was his decision.

“It was mutual, you know, it was something I think we both talked about, and I think they wanted to see where my boss was and I obviously expressed them and you know they understood,” he said.

The new city of Stafford is Los Angeles and their new team is the Rams. He is still amazed at how the trade works.

“It was honestly, you know, one of two teams that I didn’t think would be able to make it happen, if they wanted to match it.” He said. “The fact that they wanted to was huge and the fact that they could, I think you have to give a lot of credit to the Rams organization, but also to the Lions, in addition to being creative and finding a way to get it done.”

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Professionally, Detroit is all Stafford has known. “The D” has become his home, but it is the people and fans who encouraged and, yes, sometimes booed, who will always occupy a special place in his heart.

“Whenever we go to the community, you know it’s people who give us wishes and that means the world to us,” he said.

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