The Packer brain trust and their fans have been spoiled by playing in a perennial weak division.
Perry doesn't have the necessary ability to change direction at a high speed and lacks lateral quickness and explosion in short areas to play inside.
That would be a d*mning description of an edge rusher unless all you expect is a bull rush. That's a dog that won't hunt.
He's got explosion and quickness in short areas. We've seen him dip and rip about once per year; he might have been called out for it in the position room. What he has not mastered is how to use that explosion and quickness within the Capers context...pocket contain is Job #1. Capers does not want to take the occasional sack if that technique means getting ridden around the pocket giving QBs easy escape routes. And if you use an inside swim or spin move, you darn well better find the angle that keeps contain.
Anyway, it's a moot point now. One of 2 things will happen. Either Perry shows he's Pepper's successor and earns a nice long term contract, or he doesn't prove up in which case he gets a shorter, lesser Neal-type offer as a rotational OLB. In the latter case the odds go up that one of the 31 other teams will think more of him than what the Packers will offer. That might even occur in the former case, for that matter, given the propensity in the NFL to offer big contracts on the back of a single breakout year.
If an ILB conversion was ever considered, that train has left the station.
