Speaking after the club's 2004 campaign was ended by a 10-point semi-final loss to Geelong at the MCG on Saturday night, Sheedy paid tribute to Mark Mercuri, Joe Misiti and Sean Wellman.
"They've been wonderful players for the club but we're onto moving into a new era and probably half-way through the year the club and the selectors felt that that's the way we had to go," Sheedy said.
"Hopefully we've blooded enough young players that believe that they can make it, but I'd like to thank Mark Mercuri and Joe Misiti and Sean Wellman for their wonderful careers at Essendon."
"I think we've played some players this year that should have good futures."
He believes there is a lot of good footy to come from the club's significant band of youngsters, mentioning Courtney Johns, Joel Reynolds, Kepler Bradley, Jason Laycock, Jason Winderlich, Ricky Dyson, Jobe Watson, Nathan Lovett-Murray, Marc Bullen and Brent Stanton.
Sheedy is confident those players will help the club maintain its proud finals record - it hasn't missed playing in September for the last nine seasons.
"We've got to do it yet, but at least we've put a few things in place that we can get better and hopefully have a chance next year rather than go down to the bottom three or four, like a lot of clubs have done."
The Bombers trailed by 26 points at half-time and were 33 points adrift at the last change before almost snatching the match with a barnstorming five-goal-to-one final term.
"The players never gave up but we should have never been in the position we were in at half-time. It's as simple as that."
"Where we'll end up is probably fifth of sixth and that's probably where we are and where we've been for the last couple of years. We had a terrific opportunity (to keep playing in Melbourne) and we didn't take it."
Sheedy predicted Brisbane and Port Adelaide look the most likely grand finalists in a fortnight's time and thought the Lions were favourites to be premiers for a fourth straight season.
