Cris Collinsworth CHARLOTTE, NC – SEPTEMBER 21: NBC Sports personality Cris Collinsworth during an NBC Sunday Night Football broadcast between the Carolina Panthers abd the Pittsburgh Steelers at Bank of America Stadium on September 21, 2014 in Charlotte, North Carolina. (Photo by Grant Halverson/Getty Images)

NBC’s Cris Collinsworth has been one of the top sports analysts working on television for a long time. Given how long he’s been in the television business it’s almost hard to forget that he did have an accomplished playing career as a wide receiver. Collinsworth was an All-American at the University of Florida and was drafted by the Cincinnati Bengals in the second round of the 1981 NFL Draft.

Collinsworth played 8 seasons with the Bengals, posting 36 TDs in his career and 4 1,000 yard plus seasons. And he earned a Sports Illustrated cover as a rookie in 1981 when he and the Bengals reached the Super Bowl.

This week, Collinsworth told an amusing story to Sports Illustrated’s Peter King about that cover – it was almost ruined by a massive pimple.

“As only can happen to me, I wake up that morning with one of those prom zits. I’m not kidding. It looks a little like Australia on my chin.

“I go down there and I go ‘listen, I don’t want to do this.’ I’ve got Clearsil on it, I’ve got makeup, I’ve tried to do everything I can and it just keeps looking worse. It is awful. They say you gotta do it. 

“So I take this picture. I’m not lying to you—they tell me the cover is out so I got to find it here somewhere. I am literally dreading, I am going to take so much abusive for this massive zit on my chin, I can’t stand it. I’m dying. I go down and I have my hand over my eyes, and I look at this cover for the first time. And it looked beautiful. 

Here’s the proof of Collinsworth’s unblemished SI cover…

See, photoshop isn’t just a product of the Kardashian Era, it can even be used to make 1980’s football players look good too! In case you’re interested in reading the original Collinsworth cover story, you can read it here.

[Sports Illustrated]