Simon Goodwin will need an experienced mentor if he becomes Adelaide's next AFL coach, according to Mark Thompson.

Goodwin and Thompson are assistants at Essendon, with Thompson guiding James Hird in his debut season as an AFL senior coach.

Thompson coached Geelong to two premierships before he controversially left the Cats at the end of last season and returned to the Bombers.

Goodwin captained Adelaide before going to the Bombers and there are big wraps on how he has performed in an assistant role at Windy Hill.

But Thompson said Goodwin would need a guiding hand if he took on the senior role at the Crows.

Neil Craig resigned as Adelaide coach at the start of last week and Mark Bickley is their caretaker for the rest of the season.

"I don't know you'd ever say no to a job if it was offered to you, but saying that, if he went there, he'd need someone in my type of role to help him," Thompson told TripleM.

"It's a massive job and it's totally under-rated in some aspects.

"You don't really know how hard or difficult it's going to be or how busy you're going to be or how much pressure you're going to be under until you're actually in the driver's seat."

Thompson said it was not surprising that Hird had adapted to the senior coaching role "really quick", but added his former Essendon teammate had to learn how to delegate and manage his time.

"You can't be everything to everyone," Thompson said.

Thompson also revealed before Sunday's game against Collingwood that he did not spend too much time analysing Essendon while he was still coaching Geelong.

"I didn't pay a lot of interest in Essendon," he said.

"There are some teams you did focus on, Essendon wasn't one of them, because we really didn't need to.

"Now coming in here, we have a lot of natural ability, we just have to teach them how we want them to play.

"We have to get them bigger and stronger and more competitive in every quarter of every game."

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