Thus far in our "Road To" series, the focus has been on projection and fulfilling peak season ceilings. We've discussed Eli Manning becoming QB1, Carlos Hyde breaking tackles to RB1, and Brandin Cooks converting his targets into WR1. These players all had one major thing in common in that they had room for growth on top of their past success to surge to the top of their respective positions.

The big difference when looking for players outside of the top 10 positional ranks at TE that could reach the top of those ranks by season's end is the lack of volatility at the TE1 position over the past five years. Only two players have held the TE1 position since 2011. The first is Rob Gronkowski, who despite not having his starting QB for the first four weeks of the season, is ranked number 1 in all preseason TE rankings and is commonly being grabbed in the first round of many fantasy leagues. The second TE that has held the TE1 position is, of course, former Saints pass catcher and current Seattle Seahawks rebound candidate, Jimmy Graham.

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How Jimmy Graham Returns to TE1 Overall Status

Graham earned top TE honors in 2012 and 2013, with the latter being his most impressive campaign totaling 86 catches, 1215 yards and 16 TDs. Since that 218 fantasy point outburst though, Graham has struggled, fighting through injuries, adjustments to a new system and role in Seattle, and to be frank, age (Graham turns 30 years old this November). This past year, Graham's first in Seattle, Graham tallied just 48 catches for 605 yards and 2 TD's. So, the question becomes, what has changed?

Graham's 2015 numbers weren't quite as bad as the raw numbers suggest. First off, Graham only played in 11 games last season, some of which were only partial affairs. Secondly, touchdowns are always volatile, so let's throw last year's total out the window and assume the larger sample size of 46 TD's in 63 games from 2011-2015 prevails.

Lastly, Graham's targets went down in his first year in Seattle, but he converted his targets at an identical rate with a catch percentage of 65% and actually improved on his 2011-2015 yards per catch average of 12.4 to 12.6 yards per catch during the 2016 season. As usual, opportunity is the key ingredient to fantasy numbers.

The 2016 Seattle Seahawks offense is a different animal than the Seahawks offenses of the past few years. Beast Mode is no more. Marshawn Lynch has retired and left a void in the Seahawks offense, especially in the Red Zone. Even with Lynch, we all know about Pete Carroll's penchant for throwing at the goal line...oops. Jokes aside, Red Zone looks are going to be up for grabs this season.

From 2013-2015, Seattle ran the ball 225 times inside the 20 yard line versus just 184 passes. With Lynch out of the picture, expect to see Jimmy Graham vastly improve on his 8 red zone targets from last season. Additionally, Doug Baldwin's emergence as a red zone threat (15 targets, 6 TDs in 2015) may draw some extra attention from defenses and give Graham some more one on one opportunities down the middle of the field.

Graham's biggest question mark is his health. If he's not healthy, all of the opportunity in the world isn't going to matter. He's coming back from a brutal injury, a ruptured patellar tendon, in which he was just recently lifted from the PUP. He has not started working in team drills yet, but there is still a feeling that he could be ready for week 1.

According to reports, Graham has dropped 15 pounds this offseason, theoretically to take some of the strain off those knees. Health aside, at his current draft price and upside potential, Jimmy Graham is a late-round grab that truly has the ability to be the top player at his position.