Detroit Lions' Matthew Stafford once kept a secret RV for team QBs

Carlos Monarrez | Detroit Free Press

Psst! Please don’t tell anyone, but Matthew Stafford has a secret.

A deep, dark secret no one was ever supposed to find out — until his buddy and former Detroit Lions quarterback Drew Stanton gleefully spilled the beans.

Stafford once kept a recreational vehicle for his fellow Lions QBs as a getaway during the grueling days of training camp.

This information came to me after an exhaustive investigation that turned up an article on the dark web, a.k.a. ESPN.com and ClevelandBrowns.com. That’s where I discovered the hidden secret of the RV that Stanton and fellow veteran Shaun Hill had Stafford — the No. 1 overall pick in 2009 — provide for Lions QBs in 2010.

This information surfaced only because Stanton is in camp with the Browns. He and Tyrod Taylor had a “rules committee” meeting for QBs and instructed this year’s No. 1 overall pick, Baker Mayfield, to rent a similar RV during camp.

“It's just someplace that you can go, you can get out of these four walls that start to close in on you after a period of time,” Stanton told ESPN. “There's no secret meetings or anything going on.”

Stanton, the former Farmington Hills Harrison and Michigan State star, didn’t go into detail about Stafford’s RV. But we can certainly extrapolate some similarities between Mayfield’s RV and Stafford’s.

Camp is grueling for NFL players because they are essentially sequestered for much of the day, either at the team’s practice facility or at the team hotel. The RV is a genius idea cooked up by two of the best dudes I’ve covered in the NFL: Stanton and Hill. It provides an island of sorts, a much-needed respite during the taxing grind of training camp.

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“You do get one break between the walk-through and practice,” Mayfield told ESPN, “so you've got to be able to kind of relax a little bit, unwind before practice. Whether it's looking at your scripts and doing all of that over again, just getting your mind right.”

The Browns’ RV sounds like an offensive oasis. Stanton said it’s for QBs, but offensive linemen have VIP status and other offensive players are allowed to visit. No word on whether defensive players ever get past the velvet ropes.

It sure beats the alternative. Lions players, like the Browns, can take breaks in the locker room or in the players’ lounge. But that only provides limited privacy and escape. The Browns at least have a sleeping area.

“But there's 30 beds and 90 guys,” Stanton said. “So you do the math. The odds aren't in your favor.”

That’s why Stanton decided the Browns could have some fun with a novel approach to a cool getaway.

I covered Lions training camp in 2010, and the team did a great job not divulging the RV’s existence. It wouldn’t have been hard to hide it at the team’s Allen Park training facility because the players’ private lot is obscured by a fence. Plus, reporters had bigger things to worry about that summer, like Ndamukong Suh’s rookie contract holdout.

But I can only imagine what we missed. You have to figure Stafford, who elevated pontoon-boat partying into an art form, got a top-tier luxury RV. If there was a password for entry, I imagine it was “UGA,” “Ferrari” or “Kershaw.” Any caps worn inside the RV probably had to be turned backward.

My only hope is that Stanton brings one more tradition to the Browns that he picked up, in a roundabout way, from another Lion: The weekly QB competition. Jon Kitna passed it on to Palmer in Cincinnati, and Palmer took it to Arizona, where Stanton took part. The contest has led to the loser wearing over-the-top hilarious outfits during pregame warmups, such as Palmer dressing up like a hula girl and Stanton as Supergirl.

Too bad the QB competition never made it to Detroit. You have to believe Stafford would have made a great Wonder Woman.

Contact Carlos Monarrez at cmonarrez@freepress.com or follow him on Twitter @cmonarrez. Download our Lions Xtra app for free on Apple and Android!