Future is so bright, Bruce Arians will wear shades

TAMPA — After watching Chiefs coach Andy Reid need wipers to clear his fogged-up face shield in Thursday night’s win over Houston, Bruce Arians is going another direction.

The 67-year-old Bucs coach wants to take every precaution during the pandemic. But he said he will wear a facemask and sunglasses inside the Mercedes-Benz Superdome for Sunday’s game against the Saints.

''I’ll wear the mask, but the sunglasses do the same thing," Arians said. “A good wraparound pair of sunglasses protects your eyes just as well as that shield does without the fog. Hopefully, not too much fog, but fog is always the biggest problem when you wear glasses (and a mask). But yeah, that’s what I will do.”

Matt Gay wasn’t consistent enough for Bucs

The Bucs' decision to release placekicker Matt Gay after only one season wasn’t an easy one. Gay was their fifth-round pick from Utah in 2019, not as high as the second-rounder they burned on Roberto Aguayo in 2015, but it stings.

General manager Jason Licht said that Gay, a 77.1-percent field goal kicker as a rookie, simply didn’t instill much confidence in the coaching staff during training camp. Given what’s at stake this season, they went with former Titans veteran Ryan Succop after only a few workouts.

“It’s tough, but when you think you’re going to have a significant upgrade and think you have a chance to put your team in a place to win more games, it’s an easy decision,” Licht said. “You never know how it’s going to go with things, with signings, with players. There’s a lot of factors that go into it. But right now, we feel very good about Ryan.”

Succop is an 82-percent field-goal kicker who had a couple stints on the injured list with a knee problem but is recovered now.

“It came down to consistency," Licht said, “and we wanted a consistent kicker.”