Matthew Lloyd has pointed to his old Essendon premiership teammate Damien Hardwick as an outsider who has enjoyed great success coaching at another AFL club.

Lloyd has strongly denied being a backer of James Hird, who wants to coach the Bombers again.

Kevin Sheedy and Michael Long are famous Essendon figures who have come out in support of Hird.

Sheedy said an Essendon figure should take over next year, something rival coaching great Leigh Matthews said was "ridiculous".

Matthews, one of Hawthorn's most famous players, noted he became immersed in Collingwood and Brisbane on the way to coaching them to premierships.

Lloyd, one of Essendon's greatest players and now an AFL commentator, said he wants the best candidate to take over in the wake of Brad Scott's sacking last week.

Lloyd and Hardwick were teammates in Essendon's near-perfect 2000 premiership team. Since then, the Bombers have slid steadily into oblivion.

Hardwick went on to coach Richmond and went close to losing his job at the end of 2016, with Lloyd one of the many media commentators calling for change at Punt Rd.

But the Tigers stuck with Hardwick and he coached them to their drought-breaking run of three premierships from 2017 to 2020.

Hardwick left the Tigers and has coached Gold Coast for the last three seasons, taking them to their first finals campaign last year.

"Damien Hardwick wasn't a Richmond person either. You know what? They started winning," Lloyd told the Nine Network.

"I thought he should go, but they stuck with him, they stuck fat.

"He won games consistently, the fans started coming again, the passion started coming again - and that's what I pine for, for Essendon."

But Lloyd can see how Hird's enthusiasm to coach Essendon again might be scaring off potential candidates.

"I've made the point to some people - say I wanted to coach Collingwood and suddenly I was up against Scott Pendlebury and Nathan Buckley? I'd feel like I'm up against it," he said.

"I understand it ... (but) who's going to be the person out there who's approached by (president) Andrew Welsh or someone within the football club and says 'I want this job'."