Adam Simpson has ruled himself out of the Essendon coaching race.

The West Coast premiership coach had drawn criticism for joining the selection panel to find Michael Voss’s replacement at Carlton, given he was seen as a possible candidate to go for Brad Scott’s old job at the Bombers.

But Simpson, who has also been a coaches’ mentor at the Blues in a part-time capacity this year, has scoffed at the suggestion he could use his inclusion on the Carlton selection panel to his own personal advantage elsewhere.

“I am really not interested in coaching at the moment. In the short to medium and possibly long-term,” Simpson told SEN on Monday.

“If I haven’t made that clear, that’s where I sit at the moment.”

Since leaving the Eagles at the end of 2024, Simpson has dipped his toe into footy media with appearances on SEN and Fox Sports.

He says that, along with choosing Carlton’s next coach, is his priority at the moment.

“I was never going to be putting my hand up for a position for Essendon, so once I made the decision around the Carlton piece, it was like, ‘Nah, I want to try to get good at this (media)‘, to be honest,” Simpson added.

“Getting some miles in your legs with the media stuff, I think it takes a bit of time to get the craft right. So I’m working on that.

“From a coaching point of view, I’m not really in that space to be applying for jobs and I don’t think I will be for a while.”

Simpson is among a group of former coaches, including John Longmire, Ken Hinkley and Nathan Buckley, who are seen as potential candidates for future positions at second clubs.

Given that context, there was a view that Simpson could be interviewing the same Carlton candidates against whom he could then be competing with for the Essendon job, and therefore use their IP against them.

Gerard Whateley said that Simpson, as a premiership coach in his own right, should “be insulted” at the suggestion he would even need to draw on prospective first-time coaches’ IP, if he did want to coach Essendon.

“I sort of semi understand the question around that, but that’s the way it is,” Simpson responded.

“When you present for a position, you’re all in, you’re not holding anything back because someone might take your IP.

“What is IP? For me, from a coaching point of view — and I think this works in business as well — I think 90 per cent of what we do is the same.

“We’re all doing the same things. It’s that last 10 per cent, that your point of difference, and that’s more about the person.

“So that’s your values, your leadership style, the way you connect, your belonging — all those type of things, they’re the intangibles.

“I’m not really looking to steal anyone’s IP in that space. That’s how I look at it. I don’t think that’s really a conversation.

“For anyone out there who’s looking for this coaching position at Carlton, don’t worry, I’m not going to steal anything. Hopefully that puts it to bed.”

It’s common for assistant coaches to bounce between clubs to build their breadth of experience before going for a senior job, which spreads clubs’ IP naturally.

Simpson, Luke Beveridge, Chris Fagan, Damien Hardwick, Brett Ratten, Leon Cameron, Brendon Bolton and Adem Yze all worked under or with Alastair Clarkson at Hawthorn, for example, before going on to coach other clubs.

“Think about IP — everyone knows it. Everyone knows what everyone’s doing. You all steal it off someone,” Simpson added.

“When I went for the West Coast job, I’m taking all of Hawthorn’s stuff; ‘This is what I learnt at Hawthorn’.

“And Clarko knew that, and everyone who worked through Clarko’s system took a bit of what he did.

“So, 90 per cent of what we do is very, very similar. I’m looking at the 10 per cent: what makes you different?

“That’s what people need to understand: what makes you different? Because if you don’t know, then you haven’t done enough work on yourself.”