ATLANTA – New Atlanta Falcons tight end Jacob Tamme was worried about playing with another quarterback after catching passes from Peyton Manning during most of his NFL playing days with Indianapolis and Denver.
“Peyton has been a huge part of my career, and he’s a great friend of mine,” Tamme said. “It’s hard for me to go somewhere and feel like I was not falling off a cliff at the quarterback position. This is one of the few places where you could go and feel like you weren’t.”
After two days of his first training camp with the Falcons, Tamme said there has been no scary break-in period. He said Atlanta quarterback Matt Ryan has helped make the transition easy.
“Matt has been awesome,” Tamme said after Saturday’s practice. “I love working with him. He’s got a lot of similarities with Peyton – the way he leads, the way he approaches the quarterback position. I’ve got a lot of respect for that, so I’m really excited.”
Ryan is entering his eighth season as Atlanta’s starter, and his status as a respected quarterback helped draw Tamme to Atlanta as a free agent. Another attraction was the chance to play in new offensive coordinator Kyle Shanahan’s system, which makes good use of tight ends.