Except, maybe, to him. On Wednesday, Hurley called his manager to tell him he still wanted to be an Essendon player.

By Thursday afternoon he had signed and announced a new five-year contract that will keep him at the club until the end of 2022.

Jobe Watson is the Bombers' captain, the team's heartbeat and the player whose return will make supporters feel like their club really will be able to recover from their self-inflicted scars.

They need him back for spiritual reasons as much for the football he can still play, but not as much as they needed Hurley to say he would stay.

He is 26, and was in the strongest form of his career when he was one of the 12 current Bombers rubbed out for the season, at the start of the year.

He was under contract for one more year and had other teams coming for him: Western Bulldogs, Collingwood and St Kilda, for starters.

The club would have let him go had he really wanted to, but is hard to imagine the trade talks would have been fun and provided the Bombers have room to move when their talented kids need to sign new contracts, have done very well to keep their team almost entirely intact.

Hurley was runner-up in Essendon's best and fairest, a member of the most recent All-Australian team and the key – with respect to Dyson Heppell and Cale Hooker – to their immediate future.

He has been loyal to his club twice now, having knocked back Greater Western Sydney four years ago as a 21-year-old, 47-game player.

Hurley is the eighth player to have recommitted to Essendon, with the plans of Michael Hibberd, Ben Howlett and Watson yet to become known and Tayte Pears planning his next career as a firefighter.

Michael Hartley has looked more than capable in the backline this year, with Patrick Ambrose a quiet improver, too. Hurley's return means the Bombers might be able to play Hooker alongside Joe Daniher up front, immediately improving both their back and forward lines for next season.

Essendon finished fourth from the bottom last year, and will have to work hard to integrate the suspended players back into a team that, despite a miserable season, has been able to move ahead in many ways without them.

Coach John Worsfold will have seen enough in this two-win season to believe this team can get going again quickly, with the players' appeal and Watson's Brownlow the last two things to push past.

Zach Merrett, Darcy Parish, Orazio Fantasia, Anthony McDonald-Tipungwuti, Jayden Laverde, Kyle Langford, Aaron Francis and others all look like they could help form a very good team.

Hurley, like Heppell, is still young enough to be a crucial part of the team when they are good again, and therefore worth however much money they have had to pay to keep him.

Hurley said on Thursday he was looking forward to being reunited with his teammates as well as Worsfold, a coach he had only just started to get to know.

"I took the time I needed to come to this decision, and to be honest I couldn't see my future anywhere other than Essendon," Hurley said.

"What became clear was my strong bond with the playing group, I have some really great mates at the club, we've made a lot of progress and I want to achieve success alongside them."