Getty Image / Kevork Djansezian
LA Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford’s wife has seen her fair share of headlines over the years for comments away from the field on either social media or her podcast, The Morning After, which is set to embark on the ‘Cleat Chaser Tour’ soon, a nod to a nickname that has followed Kelly Stafford for years.
Prior to heading out for her podcast tour this season, a tour that her husband Matthew was very encouraging of telling her “Yes, go do it. That’s so fun. I know you’re going to kill it.”, Kelly Stafford sat with E! Online for an interview where she offered up some advice for follow NFL wife.
Kelly Stafford is a self-described “elder football wife” and E! Online asked her if she had any advice for Brittany Mahomes and Taylor Swift, or other NFL wives out there. She first acknowledged that Brittany Mahomes and Taylor Swift “have their things pretty settled and know where they are in life” which is the understatement of the century, at least referring to Taylor Swift, who has one of the most carefully curated public images of any celebrity on planet earth.
Stafford then went on to say “Something that I wish someone would have told me coming into this is, don’t lose yourself. I would say, don’t try to become the person that everybody else wants you to become. Because that’s what I did and I lost who I was.”
Kelly continued, saying “And that goes with personality, looks, all of it. You’re going to have everyone telling you what you should look like, what you should say and not say, all of these things. And if you start listening, you lose the values and everything you have that makes you who you are, and makes you the person your husband fell in love with.”
Spoken like a true elder millennial. She said all of that when a Gen Z NFL wife would have said “live your authentic self.” As an elder millennial myself, I get it. Zoomers took everything we learned from Gen X and Boomers and made our own and they’ve distilled it down even more succinctly. Props to Gen Z for that.
The One Topic Matthew Stafford Told Kelly Stafford To Avoid
Another interesting moment in the interview came when Kelly mentioned there has only been one time since she started The Morning After podcast that Matthew stepped in and asked her to avoid it.
Kelly Stafford said “There has been one time throughout this whole thing, where he’s like, ‘All right, let’s talk about this. I thought I was speaking on just the way the world has changed. Turns out, it really affected his locker room. So that was the one time he was like, ‘Listen, talk about whatever you want, but don’t talk about anything that can affect my locker room. And I felt horrible that entire month about that. But otherwise, he’s really supportive.”
She didn’t divulge what that topic was exactly but she did specify that it impacted Matthew Stafford’s locker room. And as far as I can remember, the only recent headlines involving Kelly Stafford and Matthew’s locker room were when she said her husband was struggling to connect with younger Rams teammates.
Her quote at the time was “The difference in the locker room has changed so significantly. They have a lot of rookies on their team, they’re very young. But he’s like, ‘I feel like I can’t connect’. In the old days you’d come out of practice, you’d shower, and people would be playing cards, interacting. Who knows what they’re doing, but they’re doing something together. Playing pingpong, they have a tournament going on. They’d at least be talking. But now they get out of practice, and meetings during training camp, and they go straight to their phones. No one looks up from their phones. Matthew’s like, ‘I don’t know . . . am I the dad? Do I take their phones? What do I do here?’ He’s like, ‘I want them to see me not as a coach.’”
I really, truly do not think that would’ve been enough to make things awkward in a locker room but that’s really the only instance out there of Kelly Stafford addressing the locker room in the past few years. Regardless, it didn’t seem like a big deal at all for the couple to address it. I just found it fascinating there’s only been one instance since The Morning After launched that Matthew stepped in.