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We're constantly told NFL preseason games are meaningless, and in many ways, they are. What we see is often misleading, and the final scores have about as big of an impact on the league's landscape as those of a pickup game between you and your friends.

Of course, there's a big difference between a breakout preseason performance and that four-touchdown game you had nine Thanksgivings ago—aside from the fact that your cousin Carl couldn't cover a pineapple with a parachute.

Often, a strong preseason is an indication that a player can be a difference-maker. Take the Houston Texans' Deshaun Watson, for example. He racked up 179 passing yards and 24 rushing yards in his preseason debut last season, then went on to be a leading Rookie of the Year candidate before tearing his ACL November 2.

We're here to scrutinize some of this year's breakout preseason performers and determine which are accurate signs of things to come in 2018 and which are fool's gold. We'll examine players with both strong single-game outings and high overall stats.

We won't look at established stars here because, well, who cares what guys like Tom Brady and Todd Gurley do in the preseason? We know who they'll be when the final scores matter.