#Dak Prescott opens up on ‘burden’ brother carried before his suicide

Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott will enter the NFL season with high expectations — and a heavy heart.

Prescott’s brother Jace died by suicide in April, and in a recent interview, the 27-year-old called his older brother his “best friend.”

“As much as you ask why, I knew my brother,’’ Prescott said on “In Depth with Graham Bensinger.”

“He had a lot of burdens on him. He had a lot of tough things and my sense of saying that is it showed me how vulnerable we have to be as humans, how open we have to be. Our adversities, our struggles [and] what we go through is always gonna be too much for ourselves [and] maybe even one or two people, but never too much for a community or family you love. So you have to share those things.”

Jace was 31 when he shot himself. Prescott said the emotions of caring for their mother, Peggy, during her battle with colon cancer may have taken a toll on Jace. Peggy died in 2013.

“He saw the times where she would have to spend probably 10-plus hours throwing up… and saw the medicine she had to take,’’ Prescott said. “[It’s] almost, you can’t even put into words, the burden.I mean, it’s something only Jace knew. And he didn’t necessarily share that.”

Prescott said he learned of his brother’s death from his father, who woke him with the news.

“Obviously tears and tears and tears,” Prescott said of his reaction. “I mean, I sat there and tried to gather what had happened, and wanted to ask why for so many reasons.”

Dak and Jace Prescott had recently appeared in a Campbell’s Chunky Soup commercial along with their other brother, Tad.

In his first public comments following his brother’s death, Prescott told reporters last month, “He’s part of the reason I am a quarterback… When I was a little kid, he’s the reason that I first started throwing the football.”