'Outside the Lines' looks at Tyler Sash's story Sunday

ESPN investigative sports news program 'Outside the Lines' will have a feature Sunday morning (the show is at 8 a.m., Central time) on the last days of former University of Iowa defensive back Tyler Sash.

Sash died at age 27 last September from an accidental overdose after mixing two powerful pain medications. He was an All-Big Ten defensive back at Iowa, and played for two seasons with the NFL's New York Giants. He was on the Giants' 2011 Super Bowl championship team.

'A real tender piece is what we're dealing with in the wake of his passing,' said ESPN's Steve Delsohn by phone Friday. Delsohn, a Peabody Award-winner, is the reporter for this story.

Tyler Sash: Giant loss - ESPN Video

Tyler Sash was standout on special teams for the Giants and won a Super Bowl. Three years later, he was dead at 27. Sunday on OTL, we examine Sash's story, including concussions and an accidental overdose of painkillers that eventually took his life.

'It's about Tyler's final days,' Delsohn said, 'and also the changes the people close to him observed but didn't really understand until he was diagnosed with CTE (after his death).

'It's a very emotional piece. Probably the biggest thing that jumps out is there's quite a bit of detail about the changes he underwent.'

Among those interviewed in the report are Sash's mother, Barney Sash, and brother, Josh; and Sash's girlfriend, Heather Dickinson.

'I think the thing we tried to do is not just show him as someone who succumbed to CTE,' Delsohn said, 'but also who he was prior to that. He was not a perfect person, but he was a loving person.'