Matthew Stafford’s wife says QB’s back is ‘completely healed’

Matthew Stafford was forced to miss the second half of the 2019 season after he could no longer play through a back injury he had been dealing with for quite some time, but it sounds like the Detroit Lions quarterback’s rehab has gone as well as expected.

Stafford’s wife Kelly shared a lengthy post on Instagram discussing some of the difficulties the Stafford family has endured over the past year or so, and in it she mentioned that Matthew was told by doctors last month that his back fractures are “completely healed.”

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This game was a few weeks after I told Matthew I was expecting, well really before he found out. The day I found out I was pregnant, was the same day Matthew found out he had broken his back. With that news, I decided I would keep the pregnancy to myself because for so long we had been so worried about my brain and my recovery, I didn’t want him to have to think about me continuing to recover while growing a baby.. I wanted him to have a clear mind so that he could have a quick, successful recovery himself. That lasted 3 days. Matthew is sometimes too smart for his own good. While I was so focused on him, he was focused on me, with the littlest of things clueing him into what was going on. He asked if I was, I said yes, and we hugged it out. The next month & a half was hard and exhausting. Our 3 little ones were extremely sick for weeks, at least one of them throwing up a day.. everyone telling us it was a virus so they fought like the little warriors they are, only for it to turn into pneumonia. Poor things were not themselves for too long. I had zero energy. This pregnancy had been my toughest yet.. messing more so with my head & my balance, making me sick & constantly worried something else was wrong. Then there was my incredible husband trying to keep it together while dealing with his own health issue… & all of this with the holidays were quickly approaching.. & we all know how busy & hectic the holidays are. We made it through, completing all the holiday traditions we had made thus far as a family.. but we were very ready for these tables to turn. They did. At the beginning of jan, after strong antibiotics, our girls started to gain their personalities & weight back. Matthew had gotten word that his back had completely healed and because of symptoms I was having, I got an MRI on my brain that showed no residual from surgery & everything looked normal. We finally felt like we had caught a break. The past 15 months have really taken a toll on me and my family. Next month will mark a year from my brain surgery. It is a year that has helped my family grow in numbers and in strength, but it is a year that I never want to revisit. #StaffordStrong

A post shared by Kelly Stafford (@kbstafford89) on Mar 2, 2020 at 8:40am PST

Stafford had not missed a game since 2010 prior to be shutting down last season. He had been playing through the back injury dating back to 2018, but there came a point when doctors would no longer clear him to take the field.

There has been a lot of talk about the Lions potentially trading Stafford this offseason, and Kelly addressed that talk in a separate social media post over the weekend. Stafford will likely be back under center for the Lions next season, and he should be able to adequately prepare if his back is already healed.