Joe Burrow graces cover of Sport's Illustrated NFL preview issue in September

CINCINNATI — Joe Burrow is the star of Sports Illustrated's September cover previewing the upcoming NFL season.

The Bengals QB talks with writer Conor Orr about the team, fame and last year's historic season.

The article details the highs and lows of Burrow's career, from losing the state championship game his senior year at Athens High School, through his run as quarterback of Louisiana State University's team to the historic-yet-heartbreaking Super Bowl run of last season.

Through it all, it paints Burrow — and many of his teammates — as a down-to-earth guy who feels awkward stepping into the limelight Cincinnati insists on shining upon him.

"You feel like a zoo animal sometimes when people are just looking at you and taking pictures; it's all very weird," Burrow told Orr in the article.

Burrow retreats to video games with old friends from Athens to relax, turning to his Xbox and high school comrades who have seen him through the journey.

"That's what I look forward to during the season," Burrow said in the article. "Get in on Monday, watch the film, then get away from football a little bit. Hang out with those guys."

Despite Burrow's persona in Cincinnati as a cigar-smoking, chain-donning superstar, Orr's article flips the script and shows Burrow as almost shy and reserved, while still carrying the mantle of a leader within the Bengals. Orr details inside jokes between coach Zac Taylor, former Bengals and the coaching staff while dipping into narratives that humanize a team so revered by Cincinnatians.

"There is a special kind of pressure that comes with reviving football in a place as starved as Cincinnati," Orr wrote.

But it's not just Burrow — the humanizing lens through which Orr wrote takes on the team as a whole: The morning after the Super Bowl, despite getting home at 2 a.m., Taylor was gone hours later, dropping his children off at school; Burrow's offseason vacation was spent in Scottsdale, Ariz., with Sam Hubbard before he headed home to Athens.

The cover and article are previewed on SI's website and the print copy will hit newsstands on Thursday.