Brisbane coach Michael Voss has called on his forwards to ease the load on captain Jonathan Brown in Saturday night's AFL match against Essendon at the MCG.

Brown starred with 14 marks and five goals against Collingwood at the same venue a week earlier, but the Magpies were still able to win by 40 points, with the Lions managing just eight goals in total.

While the big forward has been in magnificent form, having kicked eight majors against North Melbourne the previous round, Voss said the Lions were doomed to failure if they expected him to be their match-winner.

Brisbane will be helped on Saturday night by the return of full-forward Daniel Bradshaw from injury but Voss said they still needed more from others.

"You've got another potential goal-kicker (Bradshaw) who can kick anywhere between three and six goals, probably on a good day even more," Voss said.

"We also know that there are a lot of other players who have got to join in.

"If we don't have everyone joining in and we only get little bits and pieces from everyone then it doesn't matter what those two do, it will impact on our whole scoreboard and our whole team.

"It's nice to be able to have the luxury to have Braddy back but we also know that the others have got to join in too."

To that end, Voss will make some positional changes in attack, recalling small forward Scott Harding, while impressive first-year midfielder Daniel Rich will spend more time in attack.

"A lot of ball is naturally going to go through Browny because he's a big presence, but it comes down to the fact that as big a presence as he was and the impact he had on the game last week, we also need a lot of other guys to become goal-kickers and how we bring each other into the game is pretty critical," he said.

Essendon have been hit hard by injuries, losing Andrew Welsh, Andrew Lovett and Scott Lucas, and appear to be slipping off the finals pace after losses to Richmond and West Coast in the past two rounds.

But Voss said his team would not be lulled into expecting an easy match.

"They've shown that they can beat the best teams and match it with the best teams and I wouldn't expect it to be any different," he said.

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