Stafford: Honeymoon 'a blast,' back focused on football

Matthew Stafford had "a blast" on his honeymoon, skydiving, bungee jumping and boating in the South Pacific, but the Detroit Lions quarterback is back stateside and focused on football.

Stafford met with reporters today for the first time since he married his longtime girlfriend, Kelly Hall, in a ceremony in Atlanta earlier this month.

The two honeymooned in New Zealand and Fiji, and the usually private Stafford shared some details of his trip, the pictures of which were plastered all over Instagram.

"I don't know if (being married will) help me as a quarterback, but it's been fun," Stafford said. "Obviously, had a great wedding and had a fun honeymoon -- survived it, which was good. Just glad to be back here, honestly, and see some of these guys. Got a chance to see quite a few of them at the wedding, but it's good to be back in the building, thinking, talking football."

Stafford said the highlight of his honeymoon was a tandem skydive he did with a Croatian instructor on his back and Hall also in the air. After jumping from the plane, Stafford said he was free-falling for "a full minute" before pulling the cord on his parachute.

The two also rode a Nevis swing and went wine tasting and hiking.

"My guy just decided not to tell me any of the stuff that Kelly's guy told her, which was kind of scary," Stafford said. "I think he assumed I had skydived before; I don't know why. But we just kind of jumped and figured it out from there. But that was really cool. And we were lucky on that, having great weather and great scenery."

Stafford said Hall planned most of the honeymoon excursions -- "I think that's the guy's job to kind of plan that, but she knew that would never get done if I had to plan it, so she did most of it," he said -- and that he did not tell the Lions that he planned to jump out of an airplane before leaving.

"It wasn't like I was going to let them tell me no," he joked. "It's better to ask for forgiveness, I guess."

Lions linebacker DeAndre Levy had a similar high-flying experience this spring, when he went wing-walking on a biplane, but Stafford said that the two have yet to compare notes on their adventures.

"Kelly had showed me that video of him wing-walking -- is that what you call it? I don't even know," Stafford said. "But that's a hell of a lot scarier, I think, than jumping out of a plane. That guy, he's nuts. He does it every year. I'm going to do it once and probably never do it again. He's looking to do that kind of stuff every year."

Now that the wedding and honeymoon are behind him, Stafford, who received a number of unsolicited gifts from Lions fans who found his wedding registry online, said he's looking forward to building off of last year's 11-5 season in which he made his first Pro Bowl appearance and helped the Lions reach the playoffs.

"Obviously, you win 11 games, that's a good season," Stafford said. "It's not as good as we can be, for sure, but I think, first year in an offense, quite a few new faces in some spots all the way throughout the year, as far as injuries go, but we battled, we hung together, played really good situational football late in games, won a bunch of games late. That's what this league is about. You're not going to go out and blow everybody out every week, but just finding ways to win games was big for us."

Lions offensive coordinator Joe Lombardi said earlier this month that he wants to open up the offense this year and take more shots downfield. Stafford, who threw for 4,257 yards last year -- his lowest total since his injury-shortened 2010 season -- said that's music to his ears.

"I'm all for it," Stafford said. "And I think having another year in an offense is going to help that. Everybody understands it better, so that way, we make the shorter plays more efficient. We make sure that we're hitting those, and that gives an offensive coordinator and a quarterback and a team and an offense more confidence to go out there and take the big shot, knowing that, 'Hey, if it's second-and-10, we can get five (yards) back and have a manageable third down. So it's on us to be more efficient, first and second down, that kind of thing, and then we can take our shots when we're rolling."