Crawford received an AFL Players' Association award for his on-field achievements over the course of his career on Friday, where he spoke about his decision to hang up his boots after 305 AFL games and shared his views on the team's chances in 2009.
After breaking through for the club's first flag since 1991 last season, the Brownlow Medallist stopped short of declaring the Hawks were at the start of a golden era, but backed them to again be around at the sharp end of next season.
"I don't want to put pressure on them, but I'd be very surprised if they're not up there and leading the way next year," Crawford said.
"They're a very young side and I suppose that's probably why I thought about maybe playing on because I knew that there was a lot more improvement to come out of them.
"But it's not easy either, it's so hard to get in that situation and they'll need a lot of luck along the way as well. I'll be with them all the way; I just obviously won't be with them out on the track and on the field."
Crawford edged out St Kilda champion Robert Harvey for the GNC Live Well Football Achievement Award, but the former Saint turned the tables to win the Madden Medal which recognises on-field and off-field excellence as well as personal growth and community spirit.
While having another run at premiership glory was tempting for a fleeting moment for Crawford, he said his desire to play an active part of his two sons' lives was the key factor in what he maintains was a reasonably straight-forward decision to leave the game.
He admitted, however, that he would still be out pounding the pre-season pavement had the grand final gone the other way.
"If I hadn't won a premiership I probably would have been playing on next year," he said.
"It was a pretty easy decision [to retire], but if we hadn't won I would have, no doubt, played on next year. But it made it so much easier having won the premiership and being in that situation. It was all very easy looking at it in the long run.
"I thought it was just the perfect way to move on to my new life away from football. I couldn't have asked for a better ending.
"The more I've thought about it, the more I realised how lucky I was to play this game for as long as I did. To win the grand final was really just icing on the cake, so I consider myself very lucky to be in this situation.
"I'm just so grateful to all my teammates who were able to get up on the last weekend in September and have a win like we did."
Crawford appeared more and more likely to go around for one more season as the weeks went by after the premiership win, but he revealed it took him a while to snatch some quiet time to seriously ponder his future.
"The first two weeks [after the grand final] were spent celebrating," he said.
"I ended up going over to Hong Kong for one of those weeks and the first week was still in dream land, so I just needed some time by myself to think about where I was going and what I wanted out of the rest of my life away from football."
Crawford is looking forward to working on a number of projects for the Nine Network starting in January next year.
