When former NFL cornerback Vontae Davis died this week at the age of 35, it came as a shock to his family.
Vernon Davis, the former NFL tight end who was Vontae’s older brother, says his brother collapsed after getting out of his sauna, but he does not know the cause of death.
“This thing definitely caught me by surprise. I just don’t know what to make of it,” Vernon Davis told DailyMail.com. “I’m leaning on the detectives to figure it out but right now we have no answers. They are going to run tests and they said they’ll get back to us. It could be as long as a month, a month and a half, until we know anything.”
Vontae Davis’s ex-wife has said she thinks Vontae had CTE, but Vernon Davis noted that CTE can’t be diagnosed in living people and said he thought his brother was both physically and mentally healthy.
“Maybe that’s the case, maybe it’s not. We don’t really have an answer to that because there is no way to see into our brain while we live,” Vernon Davis said. “Vontae never really showed a history of using drugs or anything like that. I was at his house two weeks ago and he had the massage therapist there. He had a stretch therapist, a chiropractor, you name it.”
Police have said only that Vontae Davis’s cause of death is under investigation and foul play is not suspected.
