It may not be like the old days when you ran down three flights of stairs at the Sovereign Apartments every Friday to see who graced the latest issue of Sports Illustrated.

Every Cincinnati kid of a certain age can tick off the magazine's most memorable covers with the fading address labels and the mailbox's creases.

"The old master," as S.I. called Paul Brown in 1968. Rookie wide receiver Cris Collinsworth ("Nice Catch") in the first Super Bowl season late in 1981. The Athletes Who Care cover that linebacker Reggie Williams shared with his fellow 1987 Sportsmen and Sportswomen of the Year. Pop culture phenomenon Chad Johnson the day before Halloween Trick or Treat cover in 2006

But despite 24-7 video, hourly headlines, wall-to-wall podcasts and breathless minute-by-minute accounts that now include daily covers, making the S.I. front is still as prestigious as it gets in the sports world.

And to make the cover of the NFL preview issue like Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow did Wednesday is to leave a calling card for a fold-out future.

"It's signaling his arrival," says S.I. football essayist Albert Breer, lumping the 2002 shirtless Tom Brady cover in the same category 20 years later even though Burrow is fully clothed.

"Even though Tom Brady had won a Super Bowl, that story was more about promise than production. What this kid could be. Joe being on the cover lines up with that. Not just what Joe has been over his first two years, fighting back from the injury and getting to the Super Bowl and everything else. It's also what he could be. That's one thing the cover has always done. It sort of announces guys."

Conor Orr, who chronicled the Burrow story, was born about the time Bengals running back Ickey Woods beamed from the Jan. 16, 1989 cover snapped moments after the Bengals had run through the Bills in the AFC title game.

Young enough to have a great feel for the game and its players. Yet old enough to know the weight of an S.I. cover story on one of the game's shiny new faces.

"It's my fifth one and they all mean the world to me," Orr says. "Every time you step in the batter's box to do one of these, you feel the pressure because of all the writers that came before you. The great ones you grew up idolizing."

This is Orr's first cover story for an NFL Preview (the last two have featured other hot young quarterbacks in Lamar Jackson and Dak Prescott) and he plans on ordering about 30 of them. Breer says he wanted to work at S.I. for the same reason he read the magazine as a kid. To take people where few could go.

Orr obliges. He tells not only Burrow's story, but weaves it together with the background music of Cincinnati, Bengals history supplied by club president Mike Brown, the team's impact on the community exemplified by head coach Zac Taylor handing out game balls at bars and various sketches of teammates and other characters in the cast.

S.I is used to examining Bengals quarterbacks on the cover but this is the first one who is healthy. They got Burrow back in June, post-knee and pre-appendix. It's also Burrow's second time on the cover after the Dec. 2, 2019 issue wondered "From average Joe to No. 1 Pro? (it could happen)," during the last days of his dream season at LSU.

On Aug. 7, 1989, in the training camp after his Super Bowl appearance, Boomer Esiason was on a cover asking, "Can Boomer Bring It?" with the observation, "Bengals quarterback Boomer Esiason tests his ailing arm."

In the first S.I. cover with an NFL quarterback on an underwater treadmill, the May 29, 2006 issue blared "The Rehab of Carson Palmer." Orr is content with studying what makes Burrow tick.

Check out Bengals on the cover of Sports Illustrated through the years as Joe Burrow is featured on the magazine's September 2022 edition.

Sports Illustrated's Football preview issue is available at www.si.com/nfl/2022/08/17/joe-burrow-on-new-fame-encore-super-bowl-run-daily-cover and on newsstands Thursday

Cincinnati Bengals Chad Johnson Sports Illustrated Cover - October 30th, 2006

Cincinnati Bengals Caleb Miller Sports Illustrated Cover - Publication Date: October 2nd, 2006

Sports Illustrated Cover Football featuring Cincinnati Bengals QB Jeff Blake : NFL Season Preview - September 1st, 1997

Portrait of Cincinnati Bengals QB Boomer Esiason (7) in action, making pass during training camp at Wilmington College. Publication Date: August 7th, 1989

Cincinnati Bengals Chris Collinsworth Sports Illustrated Cover - December 14th, 1981

Sports Illustrated Cover Athletes Who Care featuring Reggie Williams - December 21st, 1987

Cincinnati Bengals Coach Paul Brown Sports Illustrated Cover - August 12, 1968

"I found him to be an interesting and level-headed guy," Orr says. "He's just so locked in. I've never met a quarterback so young that's just so professional and so locked in and that really came across in the time we were not only able to spend together but in the interviews with his parents and his friends. They really painted that picture for me."

The S.I. cover officially links Burrow with Bengals founder Paul Brown, the two Super Bowls, an MVP in Esiason, a Man of the Year in Williams and a cyberspace celebrity in Chad Johnson. And he's the first Bengal featured on an S.I. cover in the nearly 16 years since Johnson's Halloween appearance. Even though since then they've been to a Super Bowl, seven playoffs and won four AFC North titles.

"The power of Joe," Breer says.

Last year in the playoffs, Bengals linebacker Clay Johnston took down a king. Now this year in the preseason he's simply trying to get back over the moat into the kingdom.

File this one under the dog-eared football cliché of "Some days the bear gets you and some days you get the bear," as Bengals training camp steamed on Thursday at the Kettering Health Practice Fields. You have to expect it in a camp featuring a bear of a matchup pitting the NFL's best slot receiver in Tyler Boyd against the league's best slot cornerback in Mike Hilton.

Even if he's 22 days out of an appendectomy and in his first 11-on-11 action since Super Bowl night, you still can't Zero Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow.

As Joe Burrow prepared to participate in Wednesday's 11-on-11 team drills for the first time since he led the Bengals to the Super Bowl back in February, he also met the press for the first time this training camp.

Bengals head coach Zac Taylor isn't looking at his roster's biggest battle and his team's tune-up for the Sept. 11 opener in the context of the final two preseason games.

The season that Bengals running back Chris Evans spent as the special teams coach at Michigan's Huron High School involved crafting blocking schemes on kick return.

The Legend of Seamless Joe continues. The Reds had their Field of Dreams moment a few days ago in Iowa. On Sunday the Bengals stayed with 1980s classic baseball movies theme when they opted for "The Natural," with their version of Roy Hobbs.

A look at the roster following Friday night's preseason opener:

This orange-and-black chunk of the world seemed to be getting back closer to normal Friday night in downtown Cincinnati as the Bengals played the first game in Paycor Stadium.

With the starters sitting for Friday night's preseason opener at Paycor Stadium, the Bengals couldn't avoid the three things they handled so masterfully last year on the way to the AFC title in a 36-23 loss to Arizona.

Bengals rookie slot cornerback Abu Daramy-Swaray has been mesmerizing his fellow rookies with some of his card tricks, but his greatest feat of magic comes when he simply steps on the Paycor Stadium turf for Friday night's (7:30-Cincinnati's Local 12) preseason opener against the Cardinals.

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