Giants WRs coach Chad Hall is brother-in-law of Rams QB Matthew Stafford; Does Big Blue have an advantage?

There was a brief period of time early in the 2025 offseason when the Giants were in strong pursuit of quarterback Matthew Stafford, who was given the opportunity to explore trade options by the Rams. Stafford wound up signing an extension with Los Angeles and won the MVP award; the Giants signed Russell Wilson and Jameis Winston as their experienced options and then drafted Jaxson Dart.

Throughout that time when the two sides were flirting, one person in the Giants’ building might have been rooting harder than anyone for it to come together. Many even thought he was a key part of the potential transaction and the reason it would work.

Newly hired assistant quarterbacks coach Chad Hall had just arrived off a year with the Jaguars with a resume that included a brief but effective four-year career as a player, experience on several offensively productive coaching staffs, and a title no one else in the league could boast:

He is Stafford’s brother-in-law.

Hall’s sister Kelly began dating Stafford when they were at the University of Georgia together in the early 2000s. They married in 2015.

So while the Giants were trying to woo Stafford with contract numbers and work out potential compensation for the Rams, Hall was busy plucking on the quarterback’s emotional strings.

“Of course I was,” Hall, now the Giants’ wide receivers coach, said on Friday, a few days before his team will face Stafford and the Rams on Monday Night Football. “I wanted to bring the families together. Things happened how they happened, but those were a fun couple of weeks.”

As it turns out, the families will be together this weekend. It’s one of the joys of the rare situation of facing Stafford, Hall said, getting both sides together for the same game — his parents and Stafford’s parents will be there — and also getting to see his sister and nieces.

“In this business, it’s hard to see family, especially during these seven months,” Hall said. “But it’s nothing more than that. We’re both competitors, both out there trying to win.”

This is only the second time such a meeting has occurred. The first was in 2022 when Hall was on the Buffalo staff and the Bills opened against the defending Super Bowl champion Rams.

The Bills won, 31-10. Stafford may have the Super Bowl ring and the MVP trophy, but Hall has the 1-0 record against him.

There also have been a few preseason clashes. Hall was quick to point out, though, that they never faced each other as players. Hall, an Air Force Academy graduate who served two years before resuming his playing career as an undrafted free agent in 2010, played his final game in 2013. Stafford was the first overall pick by the Lions in 2009 and remained in Detroit before being traded to the Rams in 2021.

While the focus this week is all on the game for Stafford and Hall, there are some interesting areas in which family bonds overlap with football business.

Stafford said on his SiriusXM show this past week that he is familiar with the Giants despite not having faced them since 2023, and it is because of Hall.

“My brother-in-law’s the receiver coach for the Giants, so I’m always pulling for him and pulling for those guys,” Stafford said. “Except for this week when we play them.”

When Hall made the jump from coaching receivers to quarterbacks for the first time last year, he turned to Stafford for tips on the position. So yes, when you watch Dart play on Monday, there will be a little bit of Stafford’s sensibilities in him.

“I know he talks to Staff all the time,” Dart said of Hall. “Some of his terminology, how he sees things and how he coaches things is, I’m sure, from his conversations with Staff.”

Hall doesn’t work with quarterbacks any longer. He is strictly with the receivers. But that one season working with Dart and the others did allow him to bring a new quarterback sensibility to his new group.

“Just being in the QB room expands your mind,” Hall said. “You have to know what everybody is doing, all the reads, timing. So now I can talk to the receivers from a quarterback mindset. It’s been very advantageous for me as a coach and for them to hear it from me.”

The receivers and other coaches seem to both respect Hall and get a kick out of his high-energy personality, his long hang-loose blond hair, his floppy bucket hats and his ability to take a punch.

While going through drills with Malik Nabers in training camp, Hall was accidentally hit in the mouth. The trainers stitched his upper lip back together. Hall never left the field and resumed his place in the workout.

“He’s live,” Nabers said. “If you know, you know. He’s live, though. That’s a good thing.”

Added Braxton Berrios: “It’s always nice having somebody who has played the position when they coach you. He’s very active. He loves the game. Being a player himself, he can’t get enough of it.”

That came in handy last week when Nabers was contemplating a return to action from his ACL tear. Hall was able to draw from his own experiences with his similar knee injury and guide Nabers through the process that eventually put him back on the field Sunday night against the Cowboys.

Hall was one of the small handful of Giants coaches who stuck around under John Harbaugh. He played a year in San Francisco for Jim Harbaugh and was a player in Philadelphia when offensive coordinator Matt Nagy was beginning his coaching career there, but he had never worked under John Harbaugh (although Harbaugh said he tried to hire him at several points during his time in Baltimore).

“I know he’s got aspirations to do a lot of things, but he’s such a great coach,” Harbaugh said. “He’s a great football coach, great wide receiver coach. High energy. Motivating. He really brings that level to the guys, and they’ve been playing accordingly.”

Harbaugh said he also sees a lot of the leadership qualities he assumes Hall picked up from his time playing for Air Force . . . even if his current hairstyle and scraggy beard are far from regulation. “He’s probably making up for all the lost time,” Harbaugh joked.

Hall said there isn’t much he can tell the Giants’ defensive coaches or players about Stafford that they can’t see for themselves. “He’s a hell of a passer, throws a hell of a ball and is really intelligent,” Hall said. “But they already know that from watching tape.”

Still, there have been a few fun jabs and cracks from the receivers about Hall’s relationship to the opposing quarterback this week. Nothing too serious, but it’s something everybody clearly knows about.

“It is kind of funny,” Berrios said. “But it’s such a small world and we all have so many connections to everyone around the league. As long as he didn’t tell him any of our secrets — which he won’t — we don’t care.”