The Broncos have struck gold in the UFL before.
They’re trying it again this summer, signing a pair of players who recently competed in the spring league to contracts in wide receiver Hakeem Butler and cornerback/return man Sean Fresch Jr., sources confirmed to The Post.
The signings were not official on Monday’s league transactions list, but they will be on Tuesday when Denver starts its three-day mandatory minicamp. The Broncos entered Monday with a full 91-man roster, so a pair of corresponding moves will be needed to add Butler and Fresch.
Butler, 30, was a fourth-round NFL draft pick in 2019 by the Arizona Cardinals but missed his entire rookie season due to injury and was cut before his second season. He played professionally in Canada, bounced on and off NFL practice squads, and then broke out as one of the UFL’s dominant players in recent seasons.
Last week he was named the league’s offensive player of the year, marking the second time in the past three seasons he’s earned that distinction.
Butler, listed at 6-foot-5 and 242 pounds, caught 29 passes for 641 yards (22.1 per catch) and three touchdowns over nine games this spring for the St. Louis Battlehawks. He played his college ball at Iowa State.
Fresch, meanwhile, played collegiately at Rice and went undrafted in 2024. He’s played each of the past two springs in the UFL and is, among other things, a dynamic returner. He ran 32 punts back for 333 yards during the regular season this spring and added three kick returns for 85.
“We have a veteran roster, how can guys maybe find their way onto this team?” special teams coordinator Darren Rizzi said last week when asked about the return chops of some of the Broncos’ undrafted rookie receivers. “Return value is a big thing.”
The Broncos haven’t been afraid to sign players out of the spring league in past years and hit on a major success two summers ago in OLB Dondrea Tillman, who played for the Birmingham Stallions.
Tillman, 28, has appeared in 29 games for Denver over the past two seasons and has nine sacks and eight tackles for loss in that span.
