“My friends always laugh,” she said. “They tell me, 'All the other photographers are facing right, and you're facing left.' ”Of the dozens of photographers at Eagles games, most work for newspapers or magazines, trying to capture the big play on film. Zordich isn't worried about the big play.

She's more interested in the hundreds of small moments that make up a game day in the life of an NFL player.

She's also the only sideline photographer married to one of the men on the field. As the wife of Eagles safety Michael Zordich, Cindy has a different perspective on the players, and it shows in her work.

“Michael had a sack in [the Arizona] game,” she said. “After the game, somebody asked me if I got it, and I said, `No, but I got a great shot of Irving Fryar's expression while he was watching the play.' I love that, going for the emotion.”

Zordich has a background in photography and began shooting the Eagles this season as a hobby. There is usually a large envelope in Michael's locker stuffed with pictures to distribute to his teammates.

At a recent Cystic Fibrosis benefit, organized by the Zordiches, the stark black-and-white photos – “I like to get shots that look like the old-time, throwback players,” she said – were a big hit in a silent auction.

Earlier this week, Cindy Zordich was at the Vet taking photographs of Fryar for a brochure the Eagles Youth Partnership is putting together for its literacy campaign. And Zordich was the creative force behind the innovative and colorful 1998 EYP calendar published this fall.

“The camera is the perfect metaphor for Cindy,” said Sarah Helfman, the executive director of EYP, the team's charitable branch. “She's behind the lens, putting out these images of other people. With EYP, Cindy is one of those people who stay in the background but who you know you can always count on.”

Zordich started working with EYP last year, when she pitched her idea for a calendar to Helfman and Christina Lurie, the owner's wife. Originally conceived as another Cystic Fibrosis benefit, Zordich wanted to feature Eagles players and children in unusual situations. The three decided to expand the idea to cover different programs.

With her background in advertising as well as photography, Zordich organized the project. The wives of other players - including Susan Thomas, Juli Hall and Michelle Panos - got involved.

“We only had a month,” Zordich said. “Each wife was in charge of one scene, getting the props and organizing the kids and making sure everyone was where they were supposed to be.”

Zordich didn't take the photos - she brought in a friend, Dave Grantonic, who had more experience with color studio work - but the scenes are based on her original ideas: William Thomas in a tux at a kids' tea party (“Willie T. time”), Charlie Garner posed a la Keanu Reeves on the bus at the Please Touch Museum (“Speed”), Ty Detmer in hippie garb fronting an all-kid rock band (“Ty and the Tie-Dyes”).

“The kids would come in from the different programs,” Zordich said, “and a lot of them were special-needs kids. And they would have to act, almost, for the shots. They had to work with the players, and they became buddies. The great thing was seeing the guys hang around when they were done and just enjoy the kids.”

“Chris T. Jones' group [from the American Music Theater Festival] performed for him. No instruments or anything. They just started singing for him. It blew him away. So I think the players took away a little something, too.”

The calendar, which is in stores now, benefits EYP and the charities it sponsors. But the project did something else, too. It brought players and their wives together with the Philadelphia community in a way that is becoming more unusual as the NFL changes.

With free agency, players move from team to team and city to city. There is hardly time to put down roots. The Zordiches have been in Philadelphia for four seasons now, making them fixtures, relatively speaking.

And just as Michael is a kind of elder statesman in the locker room, Cindy has seen a number of players and their wives come and go. She said it's important for the younger women to have their own work and their own interests. Football, as a career, doesn't last very long. If that's all the couple has in common, they could be in trouble down the line.

“I spent our engagement picking Michael up at the airport after he got cut,” Cindy Zordich said. “We've been together for all of it. Most people probably imagine that everything revolves around the player, that the wife is just there to take care of him and that's it.”

“But Michael's great. We talk about his work day, and then we talk about my work day. He's more interested in talking about what I'm doing than talking about football.”

“Cindy's very talented,” Michael Zordich said. “For her not to explore what she can do would be wrong. I think it will pay off for her down the line because she's very creative.”

On Tuesday, the players' day off, Michael spends time with the couple's three children, freeing up Cindy to work. The two are forming a corporation called Behind the Cage, to market future projects, such as a book about the mental side of professional sports.

The Zordiches are planning for life after football. Michael is, after all, 34 and in his 11th season. Cindy is already scouting out replacements to run the annual Cystic Fibrosis event, something they took over from former center Dave Alexander and his wife.

“I've asked Bobby Hoying and his fiancee,” Cindy Zordich said. “I've talked to Chris and Christine Boniol, too. I don't know what will happen with it.”

Only so many players figure to be around more than a few years. That transience makes it tougher to find people willing to commit time and effort to the community. A foundation like Eagles Youth Partnership can do a lot of the work, but it doesn't hurt to have people like Cindy Zordich around.

“Right before the [EYP] carnival, I got in a jam and called her,” Helfman said. “She showed up with her sister and some friends and spent time just folding shirts. Nothing is beneath her, and then, at the same time, her photography work is stunning.”

“She puts her heart into everything she does.”