PHILADELPHIA (973espn.com) - It never hurts to ask but with little leverage to work with, the Eagles have evidently have given up in their quest to get Jason Peters to take less money.

The 35-year-old left tackle was approached about tweaking his current deal earlier in the offseason even though the organization and particularly coach Doug Pederson were on record claiming they wanted Peters to return in 2017.

With a cap number of $11.7 million (scheduled to be the highest on the team), however, Peters was ripe for a restructure from the organization’s perspective as the Eagles look to create cap space for the upcoming free agency period.

If Philadelphia pulled the trigger and released Peters, it would have gained $9.7M in cap space.

The devil is always in the details, however, and at his current number, Peters is set to be the 11th-highest paid LT in football next season, hardly out of line for his current status in the game.

The plan from Pederson’s perspective is to have Peters and right tackle Lane Johnson bookending the line while second-year players Halapoulivaati Vaitai and Dillon Gordon continue to work on their crafts outside the spotlight.

If Peters was forced to move on, it would have created a domino effect with Johnson flipping over to the left side and Vaitai likely stepping in at right tackle.

Peters was rated as the eighth best tackle in the NFL last season by ProFootballFocus.com and the sixth best LT so other than age and a propensity for false starts, the Eagles don’t have much empirical evidence to support Peters taking a cut from his current number.

Furthermore, Eagles executive VP of football operations Howie Roseman spoke glowingly about Peters’ presence on the team at his season-ending press conference back in January.

“He has really ingrained himself as a leader of this football team,” Roseman claimed. “Anyone who watched us play saw the impact he has on the game. We certainly want to have him back.”

-John McMullen covers the Eagles and the NFL for 973espn.com. You can reach him at jmcmullen44@gmail.com or on Twitter @JFMcMullen

More From 97.3 ESPN