Matt Waldman shares insights he's gained as well as those he gained from a conversation with J Moyer on what's worth gleaning from August in the NFL. 

J Moyer and I had an excellent conversation that expanded on my recent article, How I Evaluate Football In August. Unfortunately, we experienced technical difficulties with the audio and due to time and content budget restraints I re-recorded the podcast as a solo effort.

Still, it's close to 40 minutes of insights well worth your time that I've gained as a watcher of practices for over 20 years as well as J's work as an analyst and football coach:

* Warm-ups, drills, scrimmages, and games: Why the differences matter and what you can and can't glean from them.

* How to use a pre-draft scouting report as a tool for determining which practice buzz has substance.

* Which plays look a lot better in practice than they actually are to coaches and teammates?

* Putting mistakes in context and how to gain value from them.

* Fantasy Focus: When to use buzz about players, especially wide receivers, to your advantage in ways you may not have considered.

* Fantasy Focus: How to view August and September as an incremental process for your evaluation of talent.

* Fantasy Focus: Why the draft isn't the end-all-be-all of creating winning fantasy teams and why practice coverage plays into this fallacy.

Hopefully, this information will help you maintain a more even-keeled perspective about August football and ultimately maintain a steadier compass for evaluating players.

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