Vernon Davis is breaking his silence on his sibling's death.
The former NFL tight end shared that his late brother, fellow football player Vontae Davis, appeared to have slipped or collapsed after stepping out of the sauna moments before he was found dead at age 35 in his Florida home.
"This thing definitely caught me by surprise," Vernon told The Daily Mail of the Dolphins cornerback's unexpected death in an interview published April 3. "I just don't know what to make of it."
But the 40-year-old insisted that he doesn't believe "drugs or anything like that" were involved in Vontae's death. In fact, his brother was doing a lot of self-care the last time Vernon visited him at home.
"I was at his house two weeks ago, and he had the massage therapist there," he recalled. "He had a stretch therapist, a chiropractor, you name it."
And Vernon isn't the only one providing insight into Vontae's wellbeing. Megan Harpe—who tied the knot with the late NFL star in 2015—told the Daily Mail that the athlete struggled with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE)—a brain injury common in football that can be caused by repeated blows to the head—and she suggested it may have played a role in his physical health before his death.
Vontae—who retired from the NFL in 2018 after 10 seasons in order to "walk away healthy"—was found dead at his residence in South Florida on April 1. While the investigation into his death is still ongoing, authorities told ESPN in a statement that "preliminary information suggests that foul play is not involved."
Following the tragedy, sports analyst Pat McAfee was one of many in the NFL world to pay tribute to the football star.
"Vontae was an incredibly cool dude—good guy, nice guy, upbeat guy, energetic guy," Pat said during his April 1 broadcast. "I think we'll remember him being an incredibly cool teammate in that locker room and being a guy that all of us enjoyed being around on a daily basis."