Matthew Stafford Paid for a Teammate’s Wife to Fly Home. They’d Known Each Other a Month.

Washington Commanders offensive coordinator David Blough still thinks about the gesture. It happened years ago, when Blough was a backup quarterback for the Detroit Lions and Matthew Stafford was the starter. Blough had been with the team for about a month.

Blough’s wife, Melissa Gonzalez, was competing in the 2019 World Athletics Championships in Doha, Qatar. She got eliminated, and Blough figured she’d just stay there until he could see her. The NFL’s bye week was coming up, but a flight from Doha to Chicago isn’t cheap. Blough wasn’t exactly rolling in it as an undrafted player.

Stafford apparently noticed Blough seemed off and asked what was wrong. Blough explained the situation. Stafford didn’t hesitate.

“He says, ‘How come she can’t fly home? How come she can’t come back for the bye week? It’s a long season,’” Blough recalled on the “NFL Spotlight with Ari Meirov” show.

Then Stafford made a call. “A few days later, he called me. He goes, ‘Hey, can she get on a flight tomorrow night from Doha to Chicago? You can pick her up there. I’ll pay for it. I’ll fly your wife home for you.’ I had known him for a month, and he’s doing this for me.”

The Rams won the Super Bowl in 2022 and Stafford won MVP in 2025, but Blough says the quarterback’s real legacy is quieter than that. The sheer kindness of flying a stranger’s wife across the world just so a backup could have a normal bye week with his family. It’s the sort of thing you don’t forget.

Blough Carries It Forward

Now in his third season as a Commanders offensive coordinator, Blough says he actively tries to copy Stafford’s approach. The money wasn’t the point, Blough said. It was the thoughtfulness behind it.

“The money was just a drop in the bucket. What I learned in that moment was that he was trying to make every single person’s experience in the NFL special. Whether it’s a janitor, whether it’s a chef, whether it’s one of his teammates who’s in and out of the building for a week on the practice squad,” Blough said. “He didn’t know if I was gonna be there later that season. I was undrafted. I had just been traded there. He was trying to make my experience in the NFL special.”

Stafford didn’t have to do any of that. Most starters wouldn’t. But he did, and a decade later, the guy he helped is a coordinator in the league, running an offense and remembering exactly how it feels when someone at the top looks out for the people below them.

The NFL is a business. It chews people up, spits out practice squad guys, and moves on. But every so often, a guy like Stafford reminds everyone that it’s still just a game played by people. Some of those people are alright.