We're back for the final block of Allianz Football League games, but the championship is looming large in teams' minds.
It's amazing to think that between our last league game in 2012 - the league final no less - and our first championship game that summer, there was an eight-week gap. Eight weeks!
We lost to Cork in the league decider on 29 April and weren't out again until we gave Leitrim a bit of a going over in the Connacht semi-final on 24 June. (Our friends at Wikipedia have confirmed this in case anyone thinks I have a superhuman memory). It's a far cry from last year when Mayo won the league and then Roscommon sucker-punched them the week after.
We're less than a month out from championship for most teams and there's still plenty of storylines left to run in the league.
It will be interesting to get a sense of teams' priorities in the next couple of weeks and their intentions as far as the league goes.
For my part, I'm on TV duty in Salthill this weekend, where not getting blown off the punditry gantry by an Atlantic gale will be a plus. Letting ye in on a secret, I understand I'll be joined by one Tomás Ó Sé in his first punditry assignment of the year. Two sets of All-Ireland champions are descending on Galway city.
Dublin and Kerry, I'd say, will be keen on chasing a league final appearance. Why not? Their provincial championships haven't proved to be too taxing in the past decade or so. Kerry may have to navigate Cork but you'd expect them to have too much class for that, especially in Killarney.
Despite resting a few for the Dublin game, Derry are in the frame of mind where they're chasing any and every piece of silverware.
Kevin McStay didn't seem too enamoured of the idea of contesting a league final and I suspect Mayo, with six points already in the bag (not officially safe but likely so), will put out a relatively inexperienced team at the weekend. Last season may provide a cautionary tale in terms of hitting your stride in the league and then appearing to run out of gas later in the summer. I'm not sure the prospect of back-to-back leagues will be that enticing to them.
For Monaghan, Tyrone, Roscommon and, to a lesser extent, Galway, they're still in a relegation scrap. The league has to sit more prominently in their thinking given it's hard to switch your mind to championship until you've escaped that dogfight.
On that, everyone has written off Monaghan and possibly understandably so given the hammerings they've shipped in the last few weeks. Conceding 10 goals and scoring one in your last four matches is clearly relegation form.
But they somehow still have a puncher's chance against Tyrone, who are going to be without Michael McKernan this weekend. Conor McManus and Conor McCarthy have also been ushered back, even if the damage was already long done when they were introduced against Galway.
It's not as if the situation hasn't looked as dire before. Two years back, they were battered by Kildare - everyone's favourite punchbag these days - in their second last league game. The following week, Jack McCarron kicked a late winner to relegate the Dubs and keep Monaghan in the top tier for yet another year.
It'd be hard to go out on a limb and say they will survive but they've come back from worse.
Otherwise, it was a relatively quiet break week in Gaelic football. The best craic came courtesy of the Football Pod which had a terrific interview with the two Cliffords.
It was refreshing to see the two boys so relaxed and speaking so openly in the interview. It was great to get a sense of their personality and motivations and their interests outside Gaelic football.
Especially in light of the amount of unnecessary secrecy around inter-county set-ups nowadays.
The culture of the GAA is, and has been, to say nothing. Give them nothing. The media, the opposition, etc. I'd always be of the mindset of 'well, what are you going to give them?' As in, what are the opposition going to get out of it really?
They're hardly going to get much tactical info. Maybe psychological ammunition but then modern players are unlikely to go around poking the bear these days.
The secrecy and the blandness doesn't help for the promotion of the games either. You see in the NFL and NBA how open everyone is. They let it all hang out.
Even stuff like mic'ing up the refs, as they do in rugby and American football. Often you're watching rugby wondering why the hell did a referee make that call - very often while you're watching rugby. Then, he explains it to the player and you at least have some sense of his thinking. It brings you that bit closer to the action as well from a spectator standpoint.
I know David Coldrick was mic'd up for the 2015 All-Ireland final day programme and it prompted a bit of a fallout with the Kieran Donaghy-Philly McMahon business at the end.
Obviously, the players would have to be aware beforehand if they were mic'ing up the ref. Pretty sure it wasn't the case in any game I played. Not that it would mattered much to me.
I was of little use in the sledging department given I used to spend most of the game panting and slobbering and trying to get my breath back. So, I'd have limited opportunity to get in any trouble.
Either way, when compared to other sports, I fear all this managerial paranoia means we're missing a trick on the promotional side.
But then again, it's probably of a piece with the GAA's whole attitude to promotional side, where the inter-county season has become so condensed and rushed and, increasingly, even the All-Ireland final seems to be suffering as an occasion.
The showpiece of the football calendar comes hot on the heels of the hurling one. The media beast barely gets to switch its attention to the football final until the Thursday as its still digesting the hurling one.
We know the arguments - and they're good ones - for the current calendar but that situation is far from ideal.
Watch Galway v Dublin in the Allianz Football League on Saturday from 2.45pm on RTÉ One and RTÉ Player, follow a live blog on rte.ie/sport and the RTÉ News app and listen to updates on Saturday Sport on RTÉ Radio 1
Watch highlights on Allianz League Sunday on RTÉ2 and RTÉ Player from 9.30pm, follow a live blog every Sunday afternoon on rte.ie/sport and the RTÉ News app and listen to live updates on Sunday Sport
