Bills coach Chad Hall ready to cheer on brother-in-law, Matthew Stafford in Super Bowl - WIVB.com - News 4
ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. (WIVB) – Bills wide receivers coach Chad Hall would obviously love to be coaching in the Super Bowl this weekend but he might get to see a family member win the big game.
Hall will be in Los Angeles cheering on his brother-in-law, Rams quarterback Matthew Stafford.
“Yeah it would have been fun going up against him for sure,” Hall told News 4 Sports.
“Every time if our games aren’t at the same time I’m watching. Me and him are really good friends and we talk every week, we talk before every game so we’re close and I’m always supportive of him and want him to do really well. So I love watching him succeed.”
It’s got to be easy to bond with your brother-in-law when you already have something major in common like playing in the NFL. That was the case a few years back with Hall and Stafford.
Hall played for the Eagles, 49ers and Chiefs during his NFL career before making the switch to coaching. He joined the Bills as an offensive assistant in 2017 and was then promoted to wide receivers coach in 2019, a position he’s held ever since.
“His first year in Detroit I was still serving in the military and then the next year when I was able to start playing then we started training together those next four or five years. So every offseason we’d stay together, it was easy because he was a quarterback, I was a receiver so we could work on things we needed to,” Hall explained.
Stafford is married to Hall’s younger sister Kelly.
“My older sister [Jenny] and I picked on Kelly all the time. She was the runt, she was the youngest. I mean I remember we would go see Santa Claus and we would sit on his lap and who’s been good or bad and I mean she was always the bad one,” Hall laughed.
“So we picked on her a lot.”
Now the three siblings bond over things like being parents as they all have children. But that family love was needed more than ever in 2019 when Kelly was diagnosed with a brain tumor that required surgery to remove it.
“It was tough. There were so many uncertainties, we didn’t know what was gonna happen, if she was going to need surgery and then she needed it and we didn’t know what the outcome was going to be. So it was scary, I was there for the surgery and the day before, the night before you didn’t know if she was gonna wake up. When people go in and do surgery on your brain you have no clue what’s gonna happen,” Hall explained.
In April 2019 Kelly had surgery to remove the tumor in a procedure Hall explained took longer than expected.
“I’m the older brother so I’m staying strong, what can we do, how do we make it better but everything’s out of your hands. You know there’s nothing I could do so it’s tough. You feel helpless and at most points in her life whatever she needs I can help her, this I had no control over,” Hall said.
What he did try to do was keep the mood light and not thing of the possible negative outcomes.
“So I really just stayed positive and enjoyed every moment I was with her, like I always do. But I never let my mind get to the what if part. I’m very optimistic, I always try to find the best in every situation so I never let my mind get there so I just thought she was gonna wake up great,” Hall recalled.
“There was issues during the surgery so it was tough to get through. I think it was a surgery that was supposed to last like four hours, it lasted like seven just because she was in such good shape they could keep her under for so long.”
Thankfully the surgery was successful and right away Kelly was ready to start her recovery.
“She came out and I think she wanted try to start walking the first day which is so her. Her determination, her grit, she’s always proved everybody wrong. She’s a very strong willed person so yeah it didn’t really surprise me her rehab and everything, I knew she was gonna kill it. I knew she was gonna crush it, she was gonna get back to where she was. It was only a matter of time and I think she did it a lot faster than most people do,” Hall explained.
This coming April, Kelly is looking to celebrate three years being tumor free. But before that, she hopes to celebrate a major accomplishment in her husband’s NFL career with her brother and the rest of their family beside them.
“That’s what it’s all about, that’s what it’s all about really. You play this game and there’s so many great moments throughout the year, throughout your career but it’s those moments that you don’t forget. When something like that happens where you make it to the Super Bowl and he’s in his thirteenth year and barely sniffed the the playoffs other than this year,” Hall said.
The Lions drafted Stafford with the first overall pick in 2009 and he spent the first twelve years of his career in Detroit then in March was traded to the Rams. Before this season, he had never made the postseason and not only played in his first playoff game but won it with a 34-11 victory over the Cardinals in the Wild Card round.
So now in his first trip to the postseason he’s about to play in the Super Bowl and after winning the NFC Championship, Stafford and Kelly embraced on the field in an emotional moment.
“They’ve just gone through so much ups and downs in his career and it kind of probably all came full circle for both of them in that moment you know, I think they both kind of lost it a little bit which was great. I mean those two have been through it together ever since his freshman year at UGA so she’s kind of been on this journey with him, they’ve leaned on each other,” Hall recalled.
They’ve got four beautiful kids but I think it was just it all came back full circle, all the time, effort, emotion, ups and downs, it was worth it. So it was special to see, I think it’s a really special moment for both of them.”
Hall says he expects a big group of possibly 40 people in attendance on Sunday between his family and Stafford’s.
source: https://www.wivb.com/sports/bills-coach-chad-hall-ready-to-cheer-on-brother-in-law-matthew-stafford-in-super-bowl/
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