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The Coast Guard on Tuesday stopped searching for two NFL players and a third man lost in rough, chilly Gulf of Mexico waters off the Florida coast.  The USCG searched 24,000 miles of ocean before giving up the search.  Oakland Raiders linebacker Marquis Cooper, free-agent defensive lineman Corey Smith, who played with the Detroit Lions last season, and former South Florida player William Bleakley, had been missing since Saturday when their boat capsized during a fishing trip.  Bleakley’s father said he thought the Coast Guard did everything it could and that his expectations lowered after only one survivor was found Monday, nearly two days after the four friends were knocked out of their 21-foot boat.  “I think they were not to be found,” Robert Bleakley said.  Coast Guard Capt. Timothy Close said officials were sure that if there were any more survivors, they would have been found.  Crews did rescue Bleakley’s former South Florida teammate, 24-year-old Nick Schuyler, who managed to stay with the boat. It was Bleakley who swam underneath to retrieve three life jackets he could find, along with a cushion, a groggy Schuyler told Miller from a Tampa hospital. Bleakley used the cushion and the other men wore the jackets, Miller said. He said searchers came across a cooler and a life jacket 16 miles southeast of the boat, but saw no other signs of the men. Family and friends embraced and sobbed outside the Coast Guard station shortly before the announcement. They left without talking with reporters.

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