Crawford, 33, has not played since the Hawks’ round eight win over Port Adelaide in Launceston and Clarkson said the condition of the joint would be monitored closely in the coming weeks.
"We’ll just take it as it comes, with tendonitis sometimes they settle very quickly or sometimes they can drag along for six weeks," Clarkson said on Friday.
"We’re not really certain, we’d love to say he’d be playing by [this] game or [that] game but we’re not too certain when it’s going to be."
The 296-game veteran was reported for the 17th time in his career for striking the Power’s Dean Brogan and Clarkson said the discomfort he was experiencing may have contributed to his aggression.
"It’s part of the reason Crawf gets in a bit of trouble with the tribunal; when his body’s not quite right he gets very, very frustrated," Clarkson said.
"He has a little bit of tendonitis in his knee and that probably led to his silly report against Port Adelaide which cost him a week."
In a measure of the depth of their playing list, the undefeated Hawks have struggled to assemble their best 22 players with Clarkson agreeing it said a lot about the quality of some of his youngsters.
"If you look at our side for the whole season, we were riddled by suspension early in the season and we haven’t had Luke Hodge for some time, Sam Mitchell’s missed games, Jordan Lewis has only played about four or five games … but we’ve been able to cover those guys with some of the young fellas," he said.
"Last week we debuted two young fellas in Josh Kennedy and Jarryd Morton and we’ve seen the emergence of guys like Xavier Ellis and those types of guys who have been able to help out, whilst some of those more senior guys have been out of the side."
