He practiced Wednesday and is scheduled to work out again today, his first significant workouts since spraining his ankle two weeks ago. He caught one pass in Indianapolis' season-opening game, but has missed the last two games.
"I am back for the most part," said Tamme. "It just needed time to heal, and it feels a lot better now."
He sprained his ankle the first time during a preseason game with Atlanta Aug. 16. It was not so severe that he could not play in the opening game against Chicago on Sept. 7, but a few days later he hurt it again in practice and found out he had both high and low ankle sprains.
"It's been tough to just watch the last two games. It was real frustrating when it happened in practice. It was bugging me, but was not that bad. It wasn't something I couldn't play with. Then I hurt it the second time and it really hurt," Tamme said.
He's happy the Colts have a bye week to give him more time to heal before they play at Houston on Oct. 5. But the open date also came at the perfect time for him to watch Boyle, UK and Western.
"We are not exactly sure at what point we will get home because of the ankle and a few other things," Tamme said. "But we possibly are going to the Boyle game at Lexington Catholic and also obviously the Kentucky game. It's a perfect weekend for me to be home. It's just a blessing it worked out this way for a lot of reasons and I'm confident we'll be able to watch Boyle play, too."
'This is not an atmosphere that promotes panic'
Indianapolis is off to a 1-2 start and has several key players hurt. Even quarterback Peyton Manning is off to a slow start after missing the preseason due to offseason surgery.
Tamme says he has seen no panic from the players or coach Tony Dungy.
"This is not an atmosphere that promotes panic," Tamme said. "It promotes going back to the drawing board and fixing the things we have not been doing right and getting better as a team.
"We have played three pretty good teams. It's tough when you have veterans hurt and not out there. I know those guys are frustrated, but it is a long season. We have a lot of games left to play and a lot of teams have not started out as well as they wanted."
Tamme has enjoyed working with Manning and learning just how talented he is.
"Peyton really is good. He just knows everything that a quarterback needs to know and plus some most quarterbacks probably don't know," Tamme said. "He knows everything that every position needs to know, something not all quarterbacks know.
"He puts the work in to be the type of player he is. It is a lot of fun to get in the huddle and be a part of an offense with him leading things. You know you will get the opportunity to run a good play and always be part of making that play work when he is at quarterback."
Tamme says he seldom has time to relax as he adjusts to life in the NFL.
"Life has been very busy. All of a sudden there have been a few times when I think, 'Is it Monday already?' The practices are tough. There is a lot of work to put in to be good and play at this level, but it flies by, too, at times. I may not say that in week 16, but so far it has been both a lot of work and a lot of fun."
