Week one of the league, you're always wary of making any dramatic pronouncements but the manner of Galway's performance in Salthill might cause them alarm.
They were so passive, so devoid of energy and aggression. It was like they were still in pre-season friendly mode. It was baffling.
You might say it's early days in the league and it won't count for too much in the grand scheme of things come summer time, but Galway shipped a couple of big losses to Mayo last year and should have been smarting. I can't understand how you could go out to play your biggest rivals in that fashion.
Had Mayo put in a similar display, they would have been ridiculed within their own county.
Too alarmist? Look, there was some mitigation with the absence of key players. Sean Kelly, Damien Comer and Liam Silke all sat the game out and Paul Conroy only arrived at half-time, after much of the damage had already been done. Cillian McDaid, a former Footballer of the Year nominee, is a big loss for them in this league campaign and is promised to be back for championship.
But Galway are supposed to have decent squad depth and the lack of leadership from the players who began the game last weekend was fairly stark. Their over-reliance on Kelly, in particular, to provide energy and thrust to their attacks - even though he's nominally a full-back - has looked like a recurring theme.
They look a much more cumbersome, one-paced outfit without him or - as in the Mayo game last summer - when he's unable to go full tilt.
It's a massive year for manager Padraic Joyce. It's his fifth campaign and we're at the stage where nothing less than an All-Ireland victory would constitute a success.
He's been fairly open about his ambitions in that regard. Indeed several of their key players are no longer spring chickens; Comer has just passed the 30-mark, Shane Walsh did so last summer.
Arguably, they're running out of time. Mayo, as a group, were around challenging for All-Irelands for 10 years - we didn't get it done but we were in the shake-up. This Galway team are continually touted and yet they've been in only one All-Ireland final.
For all that, you'd have to suspect that Galway will bounce back in the coming weeks, after being stung by the reaction to this loss and given the talent they do have lying around. I would still back them to get their act together enough to avoid relegation.
It's important that they do because a healthy Galway adds spice to the championship and can help push along both Mayo and Roscommon in Connacht. Do I want them to win the whole thing? Absolutely not.
Mayo were slick, for sure. It was great to see Fergal Boland back in the squad and thriving, clipping over three points as well as laying on a goal for my own clubmate Eoghan McLaughlin. Conor Reid put in an excellent performance on his debut. Sam Callinan had a good tussle with Walsh, and did well on him. Paddy Durcan was rampaging up and down as per usual, picking up another player of the match award [he has no shortage of them].
They took some flak after losing to London, believe it or not, but that's rightly seen for what it is now: an irrelevance. Expectation wasn't exactly keen ahead of Sunday. The buzz that usually accompanied a league opener wasn't really there. Perhaps last weekend's result might jump-start it though.
They can have a real cut at Dublin this weekend with the security and confidence of a decent opening win under their belt. We won last time out against them in the league two years ago in Croke Park. I'd expect Mayo to pick a strong team and fancy them to get a result.
With Dublin, you're wondering will they respond to Saturday's loss by bringing back some of their big guns - although they had enough of them in action against Monaghan. Will we see Mick Fitzsimons, Stephen Cluxton or John Small back this weekend? Or James McCarthy from the start?
Even if they do, I wouldn't expect them to be as match-fit as Mayo. The caveat is that our home record has been deplorable over the past decade - something we seem to share in common with the rest of Connacht.
Under Kevin, Mayo are set up to attack and, based on Dublin's display on Saturday, you could drive a bus down the centre of their defence.
I know the anticipation is at fever pitch for Tyrone's visit to Derry, with the Mickey Harte factor an obvious subplot. I saw the main stand was sold out from Monday and they're talking about 10,000 in Celtic Park.
For me, Tyrone's display was one of the more interesting from last week. As in Mayo, the expectation levels weren't terribly high. You saw the team beforehand and on paper, you'd have been inclined to back Roscommon.
But their young guys really showed they had something about them - Ben Cullen, Ciaran Daly, Conall Devlin.
And they obviously have a wizard in the form of Darragh Canavan, who is clearly going to be the focal point of their attack for years to come.
It was part of a bumper weekend all round for Ulster across all four divisions [and certainly my days of tipping Monaghan for relegation are over for now]. Only for Meath snatching an equaliser in Navan against Fermanagh, it would have been nine from nine.
It's in Division 2, of course, where the stakes are properly high. No one is safe down there. Most pundits had Louth and Fermanagh pencilled in for relegation but the former were unlucky not to nab a draw in Armagh, while the latter got a draw in Meath.
Most impressive by far were Donegal. The second coming of Jim McGuinness should be an entertaining spectacle judging by Ballybofey last Sunday.
They put a savage press on Cork in the early stages - as hard and as high and as relentless a press as I've seen in a long time. And they got major rewards out of it. Of course, the flip side of it is you can get caught and then how do you react to that event?
But for the moment, Jim is emphasising the high press and we saw the half-back line becoming the launchpad for so many of their attacks. It was reminiscent of the 2011-12 team, where Frank McGlynn and Karl Lacey drove so much of the attacking play.
Early indicators are it's night and day from 2023. They're in a totally different headspace. We know that Jim has the personality and authority where the county will do whatever they ask him to do.
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