DELRAY BEACH, FL -- "What is this," someone asked me on Tuesday night, "a Miss America pageant?"

I stepped back and looked as the Eagles cheerleaders, dressed for a night out on this town, walked up Atlantic Boulevard to "mingle" with the local customers at some area restaurants.

What do you say when somebody asks you that?

Jennifer spent the day relaxing in the pool

"Eagles cheerleaders. Not a bad-looking group of young ladies," is what I blurted out, video camera in hand, off to the treacherous duty that is this week: Going in front and behind and all around the scenes of the Eagles Cheerleaders Lingerie Calendar photo shoot.

This week has become part of my yearly routine, so when Adrienne walks by in a thong in the hotel lobby, hey, it's just another (great) day at the office. We have a web site. You are the visitors. And the cheerleaders section just happens to be one of the most-frequented sections on the site, so Chris McPherson and I are here to provide coverage -- photos during this week and many, many pieces of video during the coming months.

And it's work, so wifey is totally cool with the assignment. And, truthfully, the reality is this: I'm 40 years old. My nine-year-old son (who, I guess, not too many years down the line will be begging me, as so many others have done, for a job as a "key grip" on the shoot) is closer in age to many of these young ladies than I am.

So instead of hanging out with Hugh Douglas and L.J. Smith and Sheldon Brown this week, I'm cozying up with choreographer Suzy Zucker, a ball of energy who has been in the business for 25 years. She's been teaching the dance routines to the Eagles cheerleaders for nearly a decade and actually has the kind of zest and expertise that helps separate the Eagles' cheerleaders from the rest of the league.

These cheerleaders are not just one-dance ponies, if you will. For each game in 2005, Zucker explains, the girls will have different dance routines -- jazz one game, hip-hop another, and so on. For the Eagles, beauty is not enough. The girls must be excellent dancers and, indeed, most of them started as dancers as little kids when their parents decided to put young Jennifer in dance class as a four-year-old.

Eighteen years later, Jennifer is going to be part of this 2005-2006 calendar, which is lingerie and sexy and, yes, appealing to anyone with an eye for that sort of thing.

It's an interesting week; different, but interesting. My job is quite busy (I'm serious here). We have to line up each girl for a one-on-one interview, 38 girls in a matter of four days. We'll also try to shoot 3-4 minutes of video on each girl during the course of the week for a music video on each cheerleader that will run later in the year on the site.

The goal is to keep the content lively and fresh in the cheerleaders section throughout the year. If that means we have to pull double duty here, hey, you do what you have to do.

And what I had to do on Tuesday night was sit by the pool at this super-cool place called Crane's BeachHouse in Delray Beach. It's a "seasonal rental option" that provides, as it says on the brochure, "simply whimsical luxury." There are neat, Keys-style rooms to rent and tiki bar areas and for about 10 minutes the cheerleaders put on a show for the locals -- performing an individual dance routine around the perimeter of the pool, making sure to dance "to the camera" (me) and laughing and having fun all the time.

That's what I do here: Film the girls. Interview the young ladies. Track down parents (there are parents of two of the girls here) and boyfriends (Amanda's is here). Talk to them, get a different perspective. Watch the actual calendar shoot as a guy who actually has a better job than I do (he oils down the cheerleaders' bodies for the photo shoot) labors in the hot Florida sun.

You have to reinvent yourself, I always say. When people here ask me if I'm the team photographer, I laugh to myself and say to them, in a serious tone, "No, but when you work on a team you have to do a lot of different things. Right now, I'm shooting video."

They generally shake their heads. "Good job," is one of the responses.

Yes. Yes, it is. The cheerleaders are beckoning, so it's time to go. More filming needs to be done. More in-depth coverage of the most alluring cheerleaders in the NFL. This calendar is big, big business. The young ladies are polished, poised and extremely beautiful and it's my job to show them off to you, the fans.

How much has this NFL changed, really? The Eagles appeal to every demographic, so that's what we try to give the fans on this web site. Hard-core football, a great Kids section and an eyeful of the cheerleaders, who, when you get to know them, are teachers and college students and moms and normal, fantastic-looking, Are-They-Miss-America? types who live next door.

So, hey, have a great Eagles day, OK? I have to get to the pool and set up my camera...