With their season at the crossroads, Essendon will be forced to find others to fill the roles of their captain, "best midfielder and best player," James Hird said on Friday.
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The coach also confirmed that 400-game veteran Dustin Fletcher had suffered a slight groin injury and would miss one or two weeks.
The Bombers will be without Jobe Watson when they play Geelong at Etihad Stadium on Saturday night, an important game for both teams, who have records of four wins and five losses this year.
They form part of a group of middle-ranked clubs in one of the closest seasons in recent years.
Hird said Watson had a groin strain that would keep him on the sidelines for a week, but it had nothing to do with the hip injury he suffered last year.
"He had a little incident like that in pre-season and missed four days of training, then came back and trained," Hird said.
"If we really wanted to push it, we could probably try to play him, but I just don't think it's worth it."
Hird said the team had managed to win a number of games last year without Watson.
"From a perspective of sharing the load, Essendon Football Club's not going to have Jobe forever, so we need to find other talent to come through and play those roles," he said.
Fletcher was subbed off the ground in the last quarter of the Bombers' loss to Richmond last weekend.
The 40-year-old was widely considered to have played below his best, and there were rumours he had been taken off due to poor form, but Hird said Fletcher had sustained up a minor groin injury and would be back in the team in a week or two.
The coach said ruckman and forward Tom Bellchambers was fully fit, but not performing as well as he or the club would like.
He needed to get better in contests and give midfielders first use of the ball.
"We're hoping for a big performance from him, we need a big performance from him ... he's worked very hard at his game," Hird said.
Jason Winderlich will play in the reserves after overcoming a back injury and was likely to return to the firsts after the club's round 12 bye.
Hird said Geelong's season had been similar to Essendon's, with lots of ups and downs, but they were excellent on the attack.
Jake Carlisle is out of contract with Essendon, but Hird would not be drawn on exactly what he had discussed with the key forward.
He said the lack of certainty over his future had not had much impact on Carlisle
"I just talk to him about what he wants out of the football club, what we want out of him, we do that regularly," he said.
