I wouldn't assume Perry has been "unwilling". Given that the rap on him coming into the draft was his motor and second effort, that might be the case.
Oh, he'll be on the roster barring injury. The roster is not deep at OLB, and it gets pretty thin when Matthews takes the middle. He's a serviceable rotational/bench player; the $1 million in dead cap if he's released makes replacing him with another merely serviceable player prohibitive. I think Elliott would need to make a pretty big jump to even consider the possibility.
Any improvement in his overall game would be welcome. I don't see him being here in 2016. I put him loosely in the same category as Raji. Need at least a decent year from both, neither likely to be on the 2016 roster. I'm hoping that guys like Elliot, Mulumba and Hubbard make big jumps quickly in training camp and allow for Perry or Neal to be traded or cut.
This. The only way the Packers would have picked up this option IMO is if he had already become a star and in spite of Thompson/Ball's best efforts they couldn't come together on an extension. The Packers may have a higher opinion of Perry than most fans and they may want to retain him, but as HRE posted, there's no way they'd pay him $7.75M in 2016. Like many of you, I expect another team will value him more than the Packers after this season.
Winston Moss was quoted as saying about Perry after the 2013 season, "he's given us nothing". Given he was about the same player in 2014 as in 2013, it is entirely possible the Packers have a lower opinion of him than even myself.
Even a stubborn Dom was able to consider that rushing 3 and dropping 8 on long down situations was futile after years of undesired results (although we employed "prevent" during last years' playoffs and got burned real good for ol' time sakes)
McCarthy being more involved in the defense gives me hope for change.
Foolish but honest confession:
From the moment he arrived,huh? Ya, the Packers defenses in 2009 and 2010 were just horrible, weren't they?
Elliot has stood out to me, obviously since he got those crazy amount of sacks in pre-season his undrafted rookie year here. Not only sure he can play, Im eager to see him play more. Curious if Mulumba is back from his acl in good form? He's a monster. And if not, can Hubbard take the next step to being a regular contributor? I bet that beast from Bama can stuff the run as well as Perry can. Anyways. This year we have 5 OLBs besides Mathews to start the season. One being Peppers. Im confident we will be better than fine at OLB.
I think you're assuming that there will not be much or significant improvement from the Elliot, Mulumba, Hubbard trio. It may become one of the strongest and deepest positions on the team.
Either Perry or Neal can be re-signed if their performance justifies it, but I'm not so concerned whether or not UDFAs are being counted upon. By 2016, Hubbard and Elliot would be going into their third seasons in Green Bay and Mulumba into his fourth. After a couple of seasons I don't think draft or UDFA status makes any difference, for example, both Shields and Tramon were UDFA.
My feelings are unfortunately, is this will be the most likely outcome. I still have hope for Hubbard, because we didn't get to see much and Elliot because he flashed early and got some time late in the season. But we've seen that from many others before and then they fizzle.
I'm not assuming anything, I'm disagreeing with your assertion that it's "poor planning". They drafted Perry in the first round to be the bookend - that hasn't worked out but not because of poor planning. They were high on Bradford at OLB and that hasn't worked out either. They acquired Peppers, Mulumba, Hubbard, and Elliott and of course switched Neal to OLB. So IMO it's not bad planning. It may be poor execution but as you posted, it's not so easy to find a starting OLB.
Harrison was not a UDFA on talent. His fate was similar to that of Burfict...graded high on talent but deemed high risk as being uncoachable and unmanageable.
