They didn’t cause the accident.....
Maybe not, but there seems to be important context missing from the article. I suspect multiple cars, likely involving the one carrying the football players as well, street racing. I could certainly be wrong, of course, but just a hunch based upon what I see everyday. It’s rare to get on a highway these days without seeing multiple cars chasing each other at ridiculously high speed through traffic. And most nights, I hear them racing on nearby side streets. Also a ton of crashes caused by them.
Some of this has always occurred, naturally, but ever since the “defund the police” madness this behavior has exploded, as has crime in general.