Stafford Talks Honeymoon Skydiving, Says 'Better To Ask Forgiveness' Than Tell Team First
By Ashley Dunkak
@AshleyDunkak
ALLEN PARK - Detroit Lions quarterback Matthew Stafford tied the knot earlier this month, marrying longtime girlfriend Kelly Hall. Hall posted numerous videos of the duo's honeymoon adventures, which included skydiving.
"It was a blast all the way around, honestly," Stafford said Tuesday, back from the couple's trip to New Zealand and Fiji and at the team's practice facility for offseason workouts. "First time being over there. Huge time difference, I'm still trying to get adjusted. I don't know. I think skydiving was probably my favorite. Free-falling for a full minute was pretty cool.
"There's like a [professional skydiver] on your back," Stafford added. "My guy just decided not to tell me any of the stuff that Kelly's guy told her, which is kind of scary. I think he assumed I had skydived before. I don't know why, but we just kind of jumped, and I figured it out from there. That was really cool, and we were lucky on that day, great weather and great scenery."
Stafford said the daredevil antics were not his idea.
"Hell no," Stafford said with a grin. "Yeah, those were Kelly's. I couldn't let her do it and not do it myself, though."
Stafford had not heard from team personnel about potentially choosing a less risky extracurricular activity, but then again, the quarterback did not bring it up to his bosses, either.
"I didn't tell them I wasn't doing it," Stafford said. "It wasn't like I was going to let them tell me no. It's better to ask for forgiveness, I guess."
"I thought I was going to be really scared [of skydiving], wasn't too scared," Stafford said. "I was more scared of the giant swing thing we were on. The sky diving was a blast, a lot of fun."
Stafford was not the only Lion to jump out of a plane this offseason. Linebacker DeAndre Levy, renowned for his exotic offseason exploits, had posted a video of him maneuvering around the outside of an airborne plane.
"Kelly had showed me that video of him wing-walking, is that what you call it?" Stafford said. "That's a hell of a lot scarier than, I think, than jumping out of a plane. He's nuts. He does it every year. I'm going to do it once and never do it again. He's looking to do that kind of stuff every year."
