Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott revealed in an interview with Graham Bensinger that his brother's cause of death was suicide. While it was previously reported that Prescott's brother, Jace, died on April 24, the cause was unknown prior to the conversation posted on Wednesday.
The 27-year-old sat down alongside his brother, Tad, for an upcoming episode of In Depth with Graham Bensinger to talk about Jace's death and how they found out about it. Dak says it was his father, Nathaniel, who told him what happened. Tad reveals that Jace shot himself. He was 31.
"I mean, obviously tears and tears and tears," Dak Prescott said of his initial reaction. "I mean, I sat there and tried to gather what had happened, and wanted to ask why for so many reasons. It was like this sense of all these emotions coming off of my back."
Among the more heartbreaking portions of the interview was when Tad Prescott broke down saying he believes he failed his brother and his late mother, who he promised that he would take care of his siblings. Jace was the primary caretaker of their mother, Peggy, while she had colon cancer up until her death in 2013.
The Cowboys quarterback also talked about his battles with depression earlier this year, when the coronavirus pandemic first began in the United States.
"All throughout this quarantine and this offseason, I started experiencing emotions I've never felt before," Prescott said. "Anxiety for the main one. And then, honestly, a couple of days before my brother passed, I would say I started experiencing depression. And to the point of, I didn't want to work out anymore. I didn't know necessarily what I was going through, to say the least, and hadn't been sleeping at all."
During his media availability on Wednesday, Prescott further explained the importance of valuing mental health, which he discovered through his personal struggles with it.
Small part of extensive conversation Dak Prescott just had in his media session about mental health pic.twitter.com/ELux0k3Uds
— Saad Yousuf (@SaadYousuf126) September 10, 2020
Prescott revealed that after his first true good night's sleep of the year he found out about his brother's suicide. As Dallas News notes, Pinehurst Police Department is still investigating Jace's death.
You can watch the entirety of the interview that was posted down below.
