{"id":18988,"date":"2025-05-02T22:06:09","date_gmt":"2025-05-02T22:06:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/18988\/"},"modified":"2025-05-02T22:06:09","modified_gmt":"2025-05-02T22:06:09","slug":"death-of-john-elways-friend-jeff-sperbeck-appears-to-be-a-horrific-accident","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/18988\/","title":{"rendered":"Death of John Elway’s friend Jeff Sperbeck ‘appears to be a horrific accident’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Days after the death of longtime sports agent Jeff Sperbeck, the Riverside County sheriff said the department hasn\u2019t found any indication of criminal activity in his Saturday fall from a golf cart driven by friend and Broncos Hall of Famer John Elway in La Quinta, California<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In fact, Riverside County Sheriff Chad Bianco told The Denver Post on Friday that there was \u201cnothing that we have found\u201d to indicate law enforcement should\u2019ve been involved.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis appears to be a horrific accident,\u201d Bianco said Friday. \u201cAnd unfortunately for all of those involved, one of the people \u2013 well, a couple of them \u2013 happen to be very high-profile celebrities. And that makes this more of an issue than it probably should be.\u201d<\/p>\n

After Elway\u2019s party called 911 from the private California country club The Madison Club<\/a>, first responders didn\u2019t immediately flag the sheriff\u2019s department for any sort of investigation, Bianco said. The sheriff\u2019s department, Bianco said, only got involved after a \u201cmassive media inquiry\u201d from a slew of outlets followed confirmation that Elway was driving the golf cart.<\/p>\n

Bianco also told The Post that medical personnel at the scene did not find any evidence to indicate Elway was inebriated. Bianco did not share any specific details with The Post about how the medical team came to that conclusion.<\/p>\n

Witnesses\u2019 statements from the event \u2014 from those on the cart to responders \u2014 had no discrepancies, Bianco said. The department also conducted an equipment evaluation of the golf cart and Bianco said no one told him there were any malfunctions.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is common practice for medical personnel, whether it be an ambulance personnel or hospital personnel or even fire personnel, to call us after the scene of an accident because something doesn\u2019t look right,\u201d Bianco said. \u201cAnd this was not the case.\u201d<\/p>\n

Bianco added that the process will likely be \u201crelatively short.\u201d The sheriff\u2019s department is reviewing surveillance footage and witness testimony in the ongoing investigation.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re doing everything we can to make sure that this is what it appears to be, and just an accident,\u201d Bianco said.<\/p>\n

Sperbeck was put on life support after being transported to the Desert Regional Medical Center in Palm Springs, but died Wednesday. He was 62.<\/p>\n

Sperbeck represented more than 100 NFL players over a 30-year career as an NFL agent, including quarterback Elway, who led the Broncos to five Super Bowls and later served as Denver\u2019s general manager. The two were friends and business partners, co-founding wine brand 7Cellars<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Elway on Wednesday issued a statement to The Denver Post lamenting Sperbeck\u2019s death<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are no words to truly express the profound sadness I feel with the sudden loss of someone who has meant so much to me,\u201d Elway said.<\/p>\n

Want more Broncos news? Sign up for the Broncos Insider to get all our NFL analysis.<\/a><\/p>\n

Originally Published: May 2, 2025 at 11:52 AM MDT<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Days after the death of longtime sports agent Jeff Sperbeck, the Riverside County sheriff said the department hasn\u2019t…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":18989,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[232,1443,5695,6684,9439,258,9440,7,7249,6742,929,5123,926,88,6,9],"class_list":{"0":"post-18988","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-broncos","9":"tag-california","10":"tag-colorado-news","11":"tag-death","12":"tag-death-investigations","13":"tag-denver-broncos","14":"tag-fall","15":"tag-football","16":"tag-investigation","17":"tag-john-elway","18":"tag-latest-headlines","19":"tag-law-enforcement","20":"tag-more-broncos-news","21":"tag-news","22":"tag-nfl","23":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18988","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18988"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18988\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18989"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18988"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18988"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18988"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}