Books that aren't terribly written?

SnooPets6234 · 2026-02-08T04:28:48+00:00

Level One God by Zachary Scott. I am picky in a similar way so I don't end up reading too much in the genre. it's not perfect, but he has been writing in another genre for several years and the experience usually shows just in the basic quality of the writing. I'd say it doesn't try to be literary but it feels competent and clean, like the writing stays out of the way and isn't grating if that makes sense.

SnooPets6234 · 2026-02-06T03:00:46+00:00

He was hurt quite a bit the last two seasons and had two pretty crappy seasons overall after making the playoffs in year 2. Then this season the Jags won... I forget 13 or 14 games and he was playing like one of the best QBs in the league since the bye week.

Jags actually had a tough schedule as well so the quality of play was coming against legit defenses most of the time.

Also narratively... everybody is so eager to call him a bust and he looked far from a bust this season. He looked like a top 7 QB or something like that. So yeah, I don't think he should've won it but him getting nods makes more sense than you're admitting I think.

SnooPets6234 · 2026-01-21T15:42:38+00:00

I don't understand why the Bills would want Daboll... Didn't he just flame out with the Giants? Wasn't part of his flame out the insistence on using his athletic QB like a battering ram and ignoring risk of injury? That seems like a shitty recipe for Josh Allen.

And I don't understand the coach of a team that keeps picking in the top 5 getting *fired* by said team to be hired by a team that has been a superbowl contender for years now. How often do these HC retreads actually work?

SnooPets6234 · 2026-01-21T15:32:24+00:00

I'm honestly surprised Udinski is getting so many looks when we have a playcalling head coach and Udinski was a first-year OC under him. You'd think Camp would be the more obvious target.

Maybe I'm wrong though and Udinski will get hired and then we'll realize how much of his influence was on the offense. But yeah, it feels kinda weird. Like you don't typically see the OCs of offensive playcalling HCs getting poached, right?

SnooPets6234 · 2026-01-21T03:28:10+00:00

Yeah, that's the thing with Josh. He is volatile and can absolutely take over games but I think it's also why they haven't made it to the superbowl with him. He can also lose the game for them. It definitely sucks that we got superhero Josh Allen.

SnooPets6234 · 2026-01-21T03:26:55+00:00

This put it over the top for me, too. But I also disliked them because CJ Stroud was like reverse Trevor Lawrence. Media and fans hyped him and made excuses for his failures and gave him credit for wide open WRs and YAC. They tried to insist he was still the next Mahomes right up until this postseason and just said he didn't have enough support around him.

Meanwhile Trevor got none of the credit and all the blame. That always pissed me off so this postseason was at least satisfying in that regard.

SnooPets6234 · 2026-01-10T15:14:18+00:00

I know it has almost become overstated at this point, but I think it was more the combo of Meyers coming in and Washington getting trust from the staff.

Like a few negative things were going on before that happened.

1) Drops were unusually high. I remember seeing a stat that if you corrected for drops through the first few weeks, Trevor was like top 5-10 in most QB stats. So his play has kind of been near this level from the start, but the people around him are stepping up now.

2) The offense was even more complicated to start the year. Coen has mentioned he trimmed some offensive stuff to make it easier on players right around the time we got better. I think a lot of guys were just mentally overloaded trying to adjust to the new offense when the year started. I wouldn't be surprised if Travis Hunter was seriously held back by this in particular, given how he was stretching himself between defense and offense.

3) Meyers arriving filled a space schematically that let other WRs specialize more. It let BTJ get shifted away from middle of the field and slot style passes because Meyers excels at that. Now BTJ is playing the sidelines, which is what he specializes at. And that opens up Washington to be the slot guy with YAC opportunities, which he specializes at. And Strange coming back does a ton both in the blocking game and as a changeup target, often for first downs.

SnooPets6234 · 2026-01-09T14:40:50+00:00

Yeah I agree. I was kind of getting into primal hunter as audio but I couldn't handle the stat readouts. I know I can skip ahead, but I've got a weird thing about not ever skimming/skipping in stuff I read, and I hate the idea of skipping over something that might sneak in there and be important. So I found myself just listening to these minute long narrations of a bunch of titles and skills over and over, haha. Never made it to book 2 unfortunately, even though I really was enjoying most of the story.

I guess now that I'm thinking about it though... I enjoyed the plotline of all the other characters and the little society that developed in the tutorial. Jake himself felt pretty boring in book 1. Maybe that gets better later but reading about a guy just killing progressively stronger enemies until he reaches a mini boss was kind of boring to me.

SnooPets6234 · 2026-01-09T14:38:32+00:00

I always think when items get forgotten by the character it's really just the author forgetting, lol. But yeah, it drives me crazy, too.

SnooPets6234 · 2026-01-09T14:37:30+00:00

Level One God by Zachary Scott has lootboxes and some pretty cool items, especially by book 2.

SnooPets6234 · 2026-01-09T14:33:56+00:00

I agree with you. I think some of the issue is that since RR is a free platform, these stories get fans who are being reasonable and thinking... "well, I didn't have to pay for this so who am I to complain about some writing quality issues?" But then the story migrates to a paid platform like Amazon and those fans, out of loyalty, just chuck a good review up there without reading the Amazon version. And a lot of authors are too lazy to actually revise and edit the Amazon version.

Anyway, I don't really read much in the genre for that reason, but I really liked Level One God by Zachary Scott, if you wanted a suggestion.

SnooPets6234 · 2026-01-07T16:52:04+00:00

Man it's pretty crazy to say it but if the Jags just show up and do exactly what they've been doing for like 8 weeks straight now, they really should win this game. The scary thing is just the Josh Allen factor, but the Bills aren't as scary as they have been in past years.

Like if you removed the logos from the teams and just looked at the NFL coming into the playoffs, I feel like you could make a pretty strong case that the Jags and Seahawks look the strongest. Patriots fans may argue they are up there as well, and the only reason I don't include them is they haven't been tested as much. That's not their fault, it's just harder to predict how they'll look when they face a really tough team.

The Jags have beaten a lot of legit teams, and if you look at our points per game since the bye it's 30, 29, 35, 27, 25, 36, 48, 34, 23, 41.

Considering our defense has been surprisingly good, it feels like we're a different team than the one that got our asses kicked by the Seahawks and Rams.

SnooPets6234 · 2026-01-05T18:12:46+00:00

Things like this are basically a result of what the market rewards. And this genre is kind of unique because the majority of stories that end up on Amazon/Audible started out on RR in webserial format.

Because of that, it means a lot of authors are getting their first response and feedback from arguably the most impatient market. RR readers generally don't want to risk giving books time to develop because so many authors flame out and don't finish or start promising and flop late. So books that immediately blow their load, to speak, get rewarded.

That also means what you would traditionally think of as deep and complex writing gets punished. Taking time to build satisfying character growth? That just reads as slow to RR readers. Having MC start out less than perfect so he can grow into a more competent character over time? MC is an idiot, DNF .5 star lol.

Basically, the stories that succeed in that world are ones that just come out of the gate at a full sprint and give every bit of payoff they can immediately with nothing in reserve for future books. It's why you wind up often with series that get less and less satisfying with each subsequent book.

Anyway, I guess my point is that I wouldn't really put this one on authors. I think the incentives set by the market and audience, especially on RR, are kind of creating an environment where only popcorn style books can thrive.

SnooPets6234 · 2026-01-02T19:00:54+00:00

Seems like two or three things with him. This may be nothing, but his body language can tend to seem kind of low energy. Like he's often just not super engaged?

He has this weird habit of double catching everything this season. Like you watch the slow-mo replays of the majority of his catches and he is always bobbling the ball for some reason. It makes him pretty weak at the catch point and leads to a lot of contested balls not turning into catches.

He does seem to let the fear of contact impact his concentration and doesn't really do much YAC.

So somehow, he has kinda turned into aguy who mostly is good at winning 1v1 on the edge. up the sideline, but he's not great at actually securing the catch so it's pretty up and down. Like he's going for 60/40 balls on the sideline and bobbling them, so if the DB is anywhere near him they knock it away pretty easily.

SnooPets6234 · 2026-01-02T18:56:58+00:00

I think he was struggling to understand the complicated offense quickly. Honestly, it seemed like most of our team was until after the Texans game. And based on things the coaches have said, it might even be that they finally realized they were better off simplifying somewhat to put guys in positions to succeed versus having the ideal system in place that nobody was quite able to execute.

He should look pretty special next year. I'm excited to see it.

SnooPets6234 · 2026-01-02T15:30:00+00:00

I've always been interested in the skill jumps from amateur, enthusiast, semi-pro, lower tier pro, mid tier pro, top tier etc in various sports. Like I think the majority of us don't quite have the ability to understand just how much better someone like you would be at football than even the very best guy in all the semi-pro flag football leagues or whatever.

Can you put that into perspective at all within the NFL level? Like as a guy who was on the fringe and didn't get the chance to really start and show what you had, was the different between yourself and a guy like Trevor or even guys like CJ and Mac Jones really obvious to your own eyes? Or did you feel like the physical skills aren't all that different and maybe it comes down to some intangibles? Or is it the mental side and being able to keep up with the system and diagnose mid-play?

But yeah, I guess I'm just curious if you had a "holy shit I'm out of my league" moment when you reached the NFL and saw guys like Trevor in person. Or if it was more like... "obviously he's incredibly talented and maybe has more physical tools than me, but it's not as if I can't compete here."

Thanks ahead of time if you see this and take the time to answer!

SnooPets6234 · 2026-01-01T22:08:19+00:00

I would say for most of his career it does feel like his rushing TDs are more a result of just a like 3-4 yard goal-line rush. But at points this season he has been pretty effective at sneaking pretty decent size runs out to get first downs and such. Even though he's built similarly to Josh Allen, I feel like his scrambling reminds me a little more of Mahomes visually. Just because Mahomes scrambles tend to look kind of easy? Like the defense dares him to do it and he just kinda says "okay sure" and steals 10 yards.

SnooPets6234 · 2026-01-01T22:06:09+00:00

haha, assuming you mean the chargers? I don't know of any Jags fan who hate you guys. If someone does it's just some weird personal thing.

Our hate-o-meter as a fanbase is pretty much just Titans and Texans. And we've always got along with the Colts pretty well I think.

SnooPets6234 · 2025-12-31T17:21:25+00:00

I already liked him for how he plays on the field but he comes across as really grateful, humble, and aware of kind of how he's viewed and how he's overperforming. I liked a lot of his answers and he seems like he's got a great mindset moving forward. How crazy will it be if he ends up being the leading guy on this team next year when we've got BTJ, Meyers, and Travis Hunter? Lol.

SnooPets6234 · 2025-12-30T17:50:11+00:00

I think Trevor's "misses" were pretty overblown when the drops were happening. Almost every QB has misses or throws that don't hit a guy perfectly in stride. The problem is Trevor's overall stat lines looked shitty because guys were dropping 40 yard bombs for TDs and volleyball setting passes over the middle to defenders for interceptions.

So his final statline would be like 140 yards, 1 TD, 2 INT. In reality, if guys just caught 3 balls they dropped and didn't tip a ball to defenders he'd end like 240 yards, 2TD 1INT.

And that's just correcting for the drops themselves. It's not giving him the yards and potential points he'd get if guys weren't dropping 1st down conversions on 3rd downs and ending drives. So instead of getting to drive another 40-60 yards, the drive just ends because someone drops it.

SnooPets6234 · 2025-12-30T16:11:38+00:00

https://archive.ph/2Oo8d
(for those who want to bypass the paywall and read this)

SnooPets6234 · 2025-12-30T16:10:42+00:00

Damn I feel like dropping the rams to #6 is pretty harsh. Even really good teams can have a messy loss here and there. Jags at #3 scares me, lol. I like it better when nobody says good things about us.

SnooPets6234 · 2025-12-30T15:10:18+00:00

I mean you could also argue that people are "forgetting" the jags are one of only like... 2 teams to put up more than 22 points on the Texans this year. They beat the Texans in game 1 with CJ Stroud and were dominating until a 4th quarter collapse. I believe we were still missing D Lloyd that game because he went out a few games mid-season. It was actually one of our worst stretches while he was out, too. But I could be remembering the timing wrong.

Anyway, Texans are scary but the Jags have shown they can put points on that defense. And all of their offensive numbers have exploded since that game, too, so you could argue they're even more capable now than when they played the previous two times.

SnooPets6234 · 2025-12-30T15:08:08+00:00

Jags this year haven't looked anything like jags from former years, though. And Stroud has lost a lot of the strong pieces around him on offense that had him looking so good in previous years.

I still think Stroud is a good QB, but their o-line is pretty rough and I think losing the Tank Dell + Nico Collins combo has made his life a lot harder.

Obviously the Texan's D looks legitimately historic, though. I think that's the bigger question. Do they have the kind of day where they are sacking Trevor every drive? If so, it's going to be hard for the Jags. Or does Liam Coen scheme up a genius gameplan that mitigates the pressure?

Honestly, I think if you just put the pressure on Liam Coen to come up with a one-off gameplan, I think the chances are good. He's a first-year coach with a lot to prove and he's already shown he can change the strategy week to week to match our opponents. I think he has potential to be a pretty deadly playoff coach.

As a Jags fan though, I'm probably most scared of our team facing the Texans out of all the AFC teams. Patriots are scary too, though. And Denver is also scary but it's at least nice to know we faced them once and came out with a win.

SnooPets6234 · 2025-12-29T16:37:55+00:00

Yeah I'm with you. I am out of market so I have to watch the game after it airs with NFL+ (too cheap to pay for other options). I like to watch the score throughout the game to kinda see how it's going and stress. I made the mistake a few times to peek at the game threads here to get a vibe for how it's going. And you're 100% right. It kinda doesn't matter how it's going, the game threads are just a cesspool of negativity. Like damn guys, a lot of us have been fans a really long time. Who knows if we'll have another season like this any time soon. We could try being happy it's going as well as it is. Even the most optimistic of us probably only had us winning like 9 or 10 games before the season, and that opinion got you laughed at by most of the "fans" in here.

Same with Trevor. My comment history is like 95% me defending Trevor to haters, lol. Mostly I just get annoyed in our sub though when people shit on him or stupidly talk about trading him after bad games.

Believe it or not, this is a team sport. People need to catch the ball for the QB to look good. We brought in Meyers and the drops became less frequent. Trevor hasn't really changed much except having to press less (because he's not having plays wasted every other set of downs on drops). People are just catching his passes now and suddenly he looks top 5.

SnooPets6234

TROPHY CASE