Kieran McGeeney said Armagh mixed the "good and bad" in their win over Derry and again expressed his bemusement that the GAA are dispensing with the group stage format.
The All-Ireland champions survived a late wobble at home to Derry, conceding two goals in two minutes and seeing a 13-point lead whittled down to four in the final 10 minutes.
Armagh looked set to win at a canter after a powerful third quarter, in which Barry McCambridge and Conor Turbitt found the net.
Ben Crealey's palmed point after Ross McQuillan's ball into the square - which the home crowd initially mistakenly thought was a goal - left the score at 2-20 to 0-13 but this teed up a chaotic closing 10 minutes.
Conor Glass and Dan Higgins buried goals with Ethan Rafferty's heroics preventing even more as Derry carved open Armagh with alarming ease. McGeeney, afterwards, partially put down the late lapses to running the bench and the subs struggling to adapt the pitch of the game.
"It was a mix of the good and bad," McGeeney said on the Saturday Game. "We played very well for the first 25 minutes of each half and then went to sleep. And got punished severely for it.
"But you will against first division teams. Lot of learnings but great to get the two points.
"We'll probably be giving it to our subs a bit. They didn't get on the ball as much as we'd like.
"It was in those few minutes we put the three or four subs on, we seemed to lapse a wee bit. We were a bit disjointed coming to the end."
The Armagh manager again took the opportunity to lambast the decision to ditch the current format, which next year is replaced by a qualifier style series following the provincial championships.
McGeeney slammed the decision as soon as it was taken at Congress back in February and reiterated his bafflement again.
"I still don't understand why we're getting away from the Super-16s. Every game that everybody plays in it is so competitive.
One game over the three years was a dead rubber and we're gonna change it.
"With this level of competition, you have the best teams so there is no respite.
"I know everybody has different opinions about different groups. But definitely in our group, you're playing a couple of the best teams in the country.
"If Dublin win their next game, they'll know that's them almost qualified on top of the group. Galway are the same, they know if they win that game, it puts them in the driving seat to do the exact same. Likewise, with ourselves.
"I think there's a good cadence in the championship. It keeps everyone busy and on their toes and a lot of exciting games out there."
Speaking later on the Saturday Game, RTÉ football analyst Peter Canavan agreed with the Armagh manager that they'd been too hasty in abandoning the current format.
"I think the GAA has been premature in doing away with them. Next week, for example, if Donegal beat Cavan and Mayo beat Tyrone, there's four teams on two points.
"And they go into the final round, each one of them with a chance of finishing top and each one of them facing the prospect that if they lose, they're out of the championship.
"There will be some final games where a team maybe will have nothing to play for. But I think we've got to see this year that every game is so important."
