Sean Cavanagh argues the current All-Ireland football championship has saddled us with "too many meaningless games" in the aftermath of two lopsided provincial deciders.
As expected, Galway and Kerry cantered to easy victories in their respective provincial finals, nailing down their top seed spots in the upcoming All-Ireland group phase.
Sligo and Clare, who defied their league standing to reach the Sam Maguire competition, the former thanks to a fortuitous draw in Connacht, take the second seed spots in Group 3 and 4 respectively.
Controversially, the third place team in each four-team group will survive the group phase, playing an away game against a second place team in another group.
The upshot of this is that 24 games will be played across four groups in the coming weeks, with four teams eliminated at the end of it.
"It's not just the provincials. Across the board, there's just too many meaningless games," Cavanagh said on The Sunday Game.
"We all grew up going to championship games, where it was knockout. There was a sense of occasion. It gave hope for teams who weren't so strong.
"You went there going that maybe a refereeing decision, or a Declan Browne scoring 2-10, might knock Kerry out. We don't have that anymore.
"We sit here every week and we look at the pre-season and everyone shrugs their shoulders and says 'well, it's only a pre-season competition'.
"Teams get safety in the league and everyone goes, 'well, it's only the league, you don't want to make a league final'.
"Now we have the provincials and people are shrugging their shoulders and saying 'ach well, it's all about the All-Ireland groups'."
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Sligo, who escaped Division 4 this year, will head into a Group 3 containing Roscommon, Kildare and most likely Dublin, with Cavanagh suggesting that mixing it in such company might not be helpful for a team in their phase of development.
"It's probably a booby prize for some teams, getting to a provincial final (and getting into the All-Ireland).
"Look at Westmeath, they haven't really developed this year. They won (Tailteann) last year and we said they'd develop and be a better team. Now, you're looking at that draw and you're going they're going to take three tankings. That's not development.
"You look at those groups and within a fair degree of knowledge, you know the four teams that are going out right now.
"But there's going to be another five or six weeks of football.
"A big team could lose two games and still end up going onto win Sam. It's too long. There's so much wrong with the structure right now."
For Mayo great Cora Staunton, the decision to allow three teams to progress is the wrong call.
"There's a lot of football and we're still not really getting anywhere. There's not going to be too many games that are crucial because three teams go through
"Is that the right call? Probably not. Why couldn't it have been two teams from each group and have a little bit more bite in each group and straight through to a quarter-final."
