Former Mayo midfielder David Brady fears his county will not have as comfortable a march through the qualifiers this year after their Connacht semi-final defeat to Galway.
Having won five provincial titles in a row from 2011-2015, Stephen Rochford's side have now been dumped out at the last four-stage by their traditional rivals in successive campaigns.
Last year they recovered to reach the All-Ireland final after beating Fermanagh, Kildare and Westmeath on the way to the quarter-finals but Brady is expecting sterner tests this time around.
"I don't know," he told the RTÉ GAA Podcast when asked if Mayo could bounce back once more.
"I'm not going to say yes for the sake of it. It's going to be a big ask.
"They have the capability. Whether that's brought out in them and they show it themselves is another question.
"Mayo had a good run in the qualifiers last year but I think it's going to be a lot harder this year.
"They got a bit of a lucky run last year where they didn't meet anyone of any substance, to a degree.
"When they beat Tyrone in the quarter-finals you could see it gave them some sense of belief and freshness but I think it's going to be hard to reinstall freshness in some of these players.
"You have to be positive when you have a team of the calibre of Mayo but when a team loses two semi-finals in a row against Galway it's going to be hard to take for the players."
"With some of these players, and the system we play, every team we play has a chance"
Brady believes Sunday's loss exposed some fundamental flaws in this Mayo side.
"With some of these players, and the system we play, every team we play has a chance," he said.
"We give too many teams opportunities in the last 15 minutes to be in the game when we have the players and capability to push ahead.
"We don't have the bench. It's about time to start asking questions and we have to introduce some new blood.
"You're not going to win a championship match with only two forwards on your bench (Evan Regan and Conor Loftus) and playing a man who hasn't played a lot of football in league or championship so far this year.
"In the last 10 or 15 minutes of the game they were on top and they came back from three points down.
"What's most disappointing is that we should have shown a lot more guile, and said 'this will happen'.
"We didn't use the experience and maturity of the years we had because Galway were on the rack.
"We should have done things a lot simpler rather than going for kicks from 35 or 40 yards out."
While highlighting the first-half dismissal of Keith Higgins as a major factor in the result, Brady added that Galway were full value for their victory.
"Galway deserved their win and they've built on last year's Connacht final," he said.
"They never gave up and they didn't panic.
"Their backs were under pressure for a fair degree of the game but the likes of Johnny Heaney and Shane Walsh were excellent.
"When their full-forward line got ball, they looked dangerous throughout."
