{"id":651346,"date":"2026-05-19T00:34:09","date_gmt":"2026-05-19T00:34:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/651346\/"},"modified":"2026-05-19T00:34:09","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T00:34:09","slug":"super-bowl-champion-craig-mortons-official-cause-of-death-revealed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/651346\/","title":{"rendered":"Super Bowl champion Craig Morton&#8217;s official cause of death revealed"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Former NFL quarterback Craig Morton <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/05\/11\/sports\/craig-morton-former-broncos-and-cowboys-qb-dead-at-83\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">died on May 9<\/a> from \u201cacute respiratory failure due to severe sepsis due to urinary tract infection,\u201d a spokesperson for the Marin County Vital Statistics Office told The California Post on Monday.<\/p>\n<p>Morton\u2019s location of death was listed as the MarinHealth Medical Center in Greenbrae, Calif., the rep added.<\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:1.54449472;display:block\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"39418384\" width=\"911\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/file-dallas-cowboys-craig-morton-127511479_d272fb.jpg\" alt=\"Craig Morton of the Dallas Cowboys holding a football.\" class=\"wp-image-39418384\"  \/>Craig Morton logged snaps for the Cowboys, Giants and Broncos in his NFL career. AP<\/p>\n<p>Morton was 83 years old.<\/p>\n<p>Kym Galloway, the ex-Broncos signal-caller\u2019s wife, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.denverpost.com\/2026\/05\/13\/craig-morton-obituary-broncos-legend-super-bowl\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">revealed to The Denver Post<\/a> last week that her husband had expressed he was \u201ctired of being sick\u201d before his passing.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe was tired of his back, he was really in a lot of pain with his back,\u201d Galloway said. \u201cAnd he just said, \u2018I give (up). I\u2019m ready to go. I don\u2019t want to do this anymore. I\u2019ve had an amazing life. And I\u2019m just tired.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAnd then \u2026 he said, \u2018I\u2019ve never said I give (up), in my life.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Morton began his NFL career with the Cowboys in 1965, and in 1969, he took over as the team\u2019s full-time starter. In 1970, he helped lead the organization to Super Bowl V, where the Cowboys narrowly lost to the Baltimore Colts, 16-13.<\/p>\n<p>In 1971, after Morton began splitting reps with Roger Staubach, the Cowboys won Super Bowl VI.<\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:1.41046832;display:block\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"39418385\" width=\"832\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/2013-statue-calls-butkus-quarterback-128154120.jpg\" alt=\"Former NFL quarterback Craig Morton with a wooden statue of a football player he calls &quot;Butkus.&quot;\" class=\"wp-image-39418385\"  \/>Craig Morton was inducted into the Broncos\u2019 Ring of Fame in 1988. MediaNews Group via Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>Following his time in Dallas, Morton went on to play three seasons for the Giants. In 1977, he joined the Broncos and had a career revival.<\/p>\n<p>He steered the team to its first-ever Super Bowl appearance in 1978, and ultimately played in a total of 72 games for the franchise.<\/p>\n<p>He ended his 18 years in the NFL with a career record of 81-62-1.<\/p>\n<p>The Broncos, who inducted Morton into their Ring of Fame in 1988, said in a statement on May 11 that they were \u201csaddened to learn\u201d of his passing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former NFL quarterback Craig Morton died on May 9 from \u201cacute respiratory failure due to severe sepsis due&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":651347,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[2356,7569,1816,7820,186,349,99],"class_list":["post-651346","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-california","tag-celebrity-deaths","tag-dallas-cowboys","tag-denver-broncos","tag-exclusive","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651346","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=651346"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/651346\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/651347"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=651346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=651346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=651346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}