Essendon's prospective top-up players have begun arriving at the club's Tullamarine headquarters.

Former St Kilda midfielder Clinton Jones, ex-Cats tall Mitch Brown and former Demons midfielder James Magner all attended the club on Thursday morning for medical checks and meetings.

Coburg VFL defender Michael Hartley, who was once on Collingwood's rookie list, was the last to attend for screening.

Jones, who left the Saints after the 2014 season, is on VFL club Sandringham's list.

"It's definitely strange and obviously something that I didn't think would happen," Jones said after his meeting.

"(Just) looking forward to hopefully playing some games," he said.

Jones, and the other potential top-up players, are yet to formalise their short-term deals.

"We just spoke about what's going to happen possibly with training and things like that," Jones said.

"[We'll] just wait and see for everything to go through and then if it does we could start training as early next week."

Jones said he wasn't thinking beyond the three NAB Challenge games or about reigniting his AFL career.

Essendon is expected to meet with more players in the coming days.

The AFL Commission has granted the club special permission to recruit replacement players pending the outcome of the Anti-Doping Tribunal hearing.

The panel is expected to take up to a month to deliberate on charges against 34 present and former Bombers over alleged use of banned peptide Thymosin beta-4.

All players still on the Bombers list from 2012 are expected to sit out the pre-season series, including those who are not provisionally suspended.