The Dockers veteran is widely regarded as one of the best taggers in the competition, but Crowley told afl.com.au that Watson is one of the most difficult opponents he has had to deal with.
"He's one of those guys who is really hard to stop getting the ball," Crowley said.
"He got away from me a bit a couple of years ago at Patersons. He's so good on the inside and guys who can genuinely win their own ball like that are really hard to stop.
"Sometimes you can limit the outside players, if you can stop their outside ball and getting handball receives and those sorts of things.
"But if he's going in and winning his own ball all the time he's pretty hard to stop."
Crowley has an exceptional record against almost all of the competition's elite midfielders, including Gary Ablett and Sam Mitchell, but Watson has caused him as much trouble as anyone.
The Essendon captain had 27 touches and a goal against Crowley in round 13, 2012 on his way to winning the Brownlow medal that year.
Crowley says he didn't play on Watson last year and does not know if he will line up on him this Sunday when the Dockers meet the Bombers in a blockbuster clash at Patersons Stadium.
"I've gone to Brent Stanton in the past," Crowley said.
"Dyson Heppell is in really good form, David Zaharakis even, so it could be a number of guys."
Crowley says the Dockers will bounce back this week after a very poor performance against Hawthorn in the Grand Final rematch last Friday night.
The 29-year-old says no one was spared a brutal review of the 58-point loss to the Hawks.
"We've had a lot of pretty strong feedback since the game from the coaching staff and player-to-player," Crowley said.
"We didn't really bring good effort last week and it's pretty evident when you don't do it at this level the game will get away from you pretty quickly."
