EMBATTLED Essendon's nationwide talent search has hit a hurdle, with the Bombers struggling to find adequate tall players, football manager Rob Kerr has revealed.

In their quest to replace the 12 current players who have received season-long doping suspensions, the Bombers have so far signed former Fremantle tagger Ryan Crowley and Geelong's triple-premiership player James Kelly.

Kerr said the club hoped to acquire six or seven experienced players among the 10 they can access from outside their playing list, but he expected a shortage of hardened big men to force the Dons to target younger talls.

"The area where we're having a little bit of difficulty is with talls. Talls are a pretty valuable commodity, so we may end up having to go a little younger when it comes to them," Kerr told SEN on Thursday morning.

"Most experienced talls who've got some promise are either on an AFL list or they've retired through injury or something like that."

Kerr said one of many players under consideration was ex-Bulldog Ayce Cordy, the 25-year-old forward/ruckman who played 27 games before being delisted last year.

One experienced big man on the Bombers' radar is former Melbourne ruckman Mark Jamar, 32, who was delisted last year and recently became Essendon's part-time ruck coach.

Acquiring Jamar would give the Bombers some much-needed ruck coverage following the loss of the suspended Tom Bellchambers.

Former Brisbane Lions ruckman Matthew Leuenberger will carry the big-man department, with support from Shaun McKernan, who Kerr suggested would be required to play as a key forward.

"We're going to have to provide a bit of back up for Matty Leuenberger and Shaun McKernan … so we're chatting to Mark about whether he might be able to join us," Kerr said.

Kerr was pleased to attract Crowley and Kelly to the cause, but admitted that although they were "fitness fanatics" who were "in pretty good nick", they might not be physically ready to play in the season-opener against Gold Coast at Metricon Stadium on March 26.

"Our strength and conditioning team, led by Justin Crow, is going to have a big task of developing a specialised program for them that'll get them ready," Kerr said.

"It'd be great for them to be right to go by round one, but we've got to be realistic about it if their preparation is such that it means that round one may not be the best time for them.

"We've got to think about the 22 rounds and how we can get maximum value from those guys. We obviously don't want to put them in a situation where they're risking an injury, because we really want them to play as many games as they can."

Essendon opens its NAB Challenge campaign against Carlton at Ikon Park on February 28.