Alm apparently was going too fast to negotiate a curve in the ramp off Interstate 610 in southwest Houston, the police said. After the car hit the guardrail, they said, Lynch was thrown from the car and went over the rail, landing more than 20 feet below on a service road beneath the overpass. The accident was discovered by a passing motorist, who notified the police.

The Oilers said Alm was a gun collector and was legally carrying the shotgun in his car.

Alm and Lynch, both 25, grew up in the Chicago suburb of Orland Park and were teammates on the football team at Carl Sandburg High School. Though Lynch did not go on to play college or professional football, the two remained best friends and Lynch, who ran a restaurant in the Chicago area, frequently visited Alm in Houston and attended Oilers games.

"They were closer than most friends are," said Danny Schumacher, a loan officer in Chicago who was a receiver on the same team with Alm and Lynch.

"If you saw Jeff, you usually saw Sean with him," Schumacher said in a telephone interview, recalling that the two had taken several high school trips to Florida together and at one point even drove the same model car, a Lincoln Mark VII, with both good-naturedly competing over who had the more elaborate car stereo.

Alm's older brother, Lance, of Schererville, Ind., said in a telephone interview that the two men were "just extremely close, as close as brothers" and had taken a trip together to Las Vegas with their girlfriends over the summer.