As Jake Butt set­tles back into foot­ball fol­low­ing his fourth major knee surgery since col­lege, the Bron­cos’ tight end admit­ted Wednes­day there were many days he want­ed to “just walk out the build­ing and throw in the towel.”

But healthy once again, Butt said he now embraces the adver­si­ty he had to over­come to get back on the field and be in con­tention to make the Bron­cos’ roster. 

“The hard­est part about rehab is it can get a lit­tle bit lone­ly, and that’s where you start to build your­self men­tal­ly,” said Butt, who’s had three ACL repairs and a menis­cus cleanup that caused him to miss all of last year’s reg­u­lar season.

“Through­out all three of my ACLs (and last year’s surgery), I think I’ve come out of the rehab more men­tal­ly tough than I did going into it.”

After under­go­ing surgery to remove about 40% of his menis­cus last pre­sea­son, Butt was cleared to return late in 2019 but the Bron­cos elect­ed to hold him out as a pre­cau­tion. Now enter­ing his fourth year, Butt’s put up a strong per­for­mance through the ini­tial hand­ful of prac­tices at train­ing camp, and is run­ning around the field full-speed, sans a knee brace.

“I think Jake is way ahead of where he was last year at this time,” coach Vic Fan­gio said. “He had a great off­sea­son, too. Hope­ful­ly we’ll see the real Jake Butt here this season.”

Den­ver draft­ed Butt in the fifth round in 2017 (No. 145 over­all) out of Michi­gan, but he’s played just three NFL games.

“He’s one of the best team­mates that we have in this lock­er room. For him to push and grind through all the injuries he’s had (is incred­i­ble),” quar­ter­back Drew Lock said. “Right from the get-go at train­ing camp I could tell he’s not 100% back to nor­mal — obvi­ous­ly, you can nev­er get total­ly back to nor­mal after a knee (injury), but he’s as close as you can pos­si­bly get after hav­ing those surg­eries. The guy is play­ing some real­ly good ball.”

Behind starter Noah Fant, Butt is com­pet­ing for time — and a ros­ter spot — with fel­low tight ends Troy Fuma­gal­li, Nick Van­nett and rook­ie Albert Okwueg­bunam. Butt is ready to put his snakebit­ten past, which includes a torn ACL with the Bron­cos in 2018, in the rearview.

“I’m not look­ing back, and I don’t have any excus­es for myself,” Butt said. “For me, I’ve got to play bet­ter and I’ve got to ele­vate my game. I’ve got to go out there and com­pete every sin­gle day. The goal for me now is to make the team… I’m try­ing to con­tin­ue to push myself to be a bet­ter foot­ball player.”