NFL players lost at sea face shrinking odds of survival. My thougts and prayers are with these men and their families. I am deeply sadden by this.

The US Coast Guard has called off the search for two National Football League players and another man three days after their boat capsized off Florida's Gulf of Mexico coast. A fourth man survived for nearly two days on the hull of the six metre fishing boat and was rescued about 55 kilometres off the coast on Monday.

The Coast Guard said it was halting the search for NFL players Corey Smith and Marquis Cooper and former college football player William Bleakley after finding an orange life vest and a cooler from the boat on Tuesday, but no sign of the missing men. "We are extremely confident that if there are any survivors on the surface of the water that we'd have found them," Coast Guard Captain Timothy Close said. Close said the Coast Guard would not try to prevent private search efforts but cautioned against it.

Smith, a 29-year-old defensive end, played last season with the Detroit Lions. His fishing and workout partner, Cooper, 26, was a linebacker for the Oakland Raiders. The four men left Clearwater Beach on Saturday morning and had been expected to return that afternoon. The area was hit by a cold front on Saturday night that produced high seas and strong winds as temperatures plunged.

The rescued man, Nick Schuyler, 24, of Tampa, Florida, said big waves overturned the boat on Saturday and his companions, who initially clung to the hull, drifted away overnight. Schuyler was being treated at a Tampa hospital for dehydration and hypothermia after more than 40 hours on the hull. "We will continue to pray for a miracle, though we fully understand and respect the decision of the Coast Guard," the Detroit Lions said in a statement. "We were thrilled yesterday with the news of Nick's rescue, and it gave all of us hope that Corey, Will and Marquis would also be found alive," the statement said. "While we still have that hope, we have begun to cope with the grim reality of this sad and tragic situation."

The Coast Guard deployed aircraft, ships and smaller boats to search some 41,000 square kilometres off the Gulf of Mexico. They narrowed the search area after finding Schuyler and the boat on Monday. Smith and Cooper began their professional careers with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the NFL team located not far from where the ill-fated fishing trip began. Smith played college football at North Carolina State and had 83 tackles and 8 1/2 sacks in six NFL seasons with Tampa Bay, San Francisco and Detroit. Cooper had 37 tackles in five seasons split between Tampa Bay, Minnesota, Seattle, Jacksonville, Pittsburgh and Oakland. Schuyler and Bleakley, 25, both played college football at the University of South Florida in Tampa.