While swimming at Golden Beach, Florida, Rosenbloom drowned on April 2, 1979. He was 72. Though Dr. Joseph H. Davis, the Dade County coroner, stated, "there is not one scintilla of reason to believe this is anything other than an unfortunate accident," a PBS "Frontline" documentary called "An Unauthorized History of the NFL" suggested that Rosenbloom, a known gambler, may have been murdered. Son Steve Rosenbloom stated that his father was a poor swimmer who never went into water alone, telling "Frontline" "If he went out alone that day, he was breaking a habit of a lifetime."