TAMPA BAY, Fla. — The head coach of the NFL’s Tampa Bay Buccaneers said that he’s going to purchase tickets to Super Bowl LV (55) in the next few weeks because after seeing his team’s first off-season practice, it’s the only way they’re going to go to one.

“Yeah, we’ve pretty much started the new season where we left off the last season, doing pretty poorly,” Coach Bruce Arians told sports reporters. “I know next year’s Super Bowl is going to be held in our city, in our stadium, but the only way we’ll be going is as spectators.”

Arians said he’d like to be more confident in his team’s ability to contend for the big game next season, now just five months away, but it’s a “lost cause.”

https://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js

(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});

“Come on, you all know as well as I do that the only reason to keep our chins up around her is to make it easier for someone to slug us,” Arians said, looking resigned. “I mean, I’m doing my best, but heck, even an offensive genius like me can only do so much. At some point, we need to get some decent play out of the guys we put on the field, and from the looks of things today, that’ ain’t going to happen.”

Arians said he felt his job was safe, at least through next season, because team owners know as well as he does there isn’t any sense in trying to get someone to replace him now. “Who’d come here?” he noted.

Asked if he any anything positive at all to say about next season, Arians paused.

“Yeah,” he said. “At least we’ll be in town for the Super Bowl.”

---