After a devastating home defeat to Fremantle, the Bulldogs' finals fate is out of their hands.
And it is injury-ravaged Essendon - who visit a desperate Gold Coast in the last game of the home-and-away season - they are relying on.
"Essendon beating Gold Coast is as long a shot as there is, so we anticipate that our season's probably done," Beveridge said after the 17.10 (112) to 14.13 (97) loss at Marvel Stadium on Sunday.
"We've just got to now support the rest of the boys who have got a Footscray (VFL) finals series ahead of us."
Beveridge said the Bulldogs will train as usual in the hope of an Essendon upset on Wednesday night.
The Suns would knock the eighth-placed Dogs out of their finals spot with a win - or even a draw - against the Bombers.
"We'll carry on like that slim chance is there," Beveridge said.
"We'll turn up Tuesday and have a flush run and process some things, and then we'll obviously be attentive to what happens Wednesday."
The Bulldogs dominated early against Fremantle but failed to make the most of their chances and were out-muscled by the Dockers' talls.
Fremantle piled on seven unanswered goals in a blistering second quarter and while the Bulldogs didn't roll over, they couldn't reel their opponents back in.
The result left the Bulldogs nursing a horror 2-9 record against top-half teams, which has been their achilles heel throughout the season.
Beveridge's men will likely miss out despite a 14-9 record - plus 137.0 percentage - that would usually have them sitting in the top eight.
"We can't have a 'woe is us' sort of attitude. That's just what it is," Beveridge said.
"It's the competition. The better teams have just got ahead of the equation a little bit with the teams down below and there just hasn't been enough upsets."
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