TAMPA - Bucs coach Jon Gruden made it pretty clear Friday that Cadillac Williams won’t be active for this week’s game.

Nothing new there, really. We’ve been telling you all week that Williams isn’t quite ready to resume a regular role with the Bucs offense and Gruden made it clear on Friday that it will be at least another week before he even takes on a limited role o Sundays.

“I don’t foresee him being a part of this game, but we’ll see how the next 48 hours unfolds,’’ Gruden said. “We seem to have had some injuries at the backfield position here. But if everything goes as planned I don’t see him being active yet. But he did take another step forward this week and that’s exciting.’’

Something that Gruden isn’t all that excited about is facing the Vikings without his top tight end, Alex Smith. That’s what he’ll have to do, though, as Smith missed yet another day of practice Friday with a sore ankle.

Smith’s absence from the lineup will force Gruden to make some adjustments. He uses a lot of three-tight-end sets and without Smith he may have to get creative to provide his quarterback with the time he needs to make throws and his running backs the space they need to make yards.

It affects us man, especially against a crowd like [the Vikings],’’ Gruden said of not having Smith. “We’ve been a two-tight end, three-tight end operation here.

“It’s a big part of our passing game, our pass protection and our running game. And Alex Smith ahs been the one tight end that’s been our every down guy. It’s a big loss for us.

“The bye week, it was hard to even conjure a game plan because we didn’t know if we’d have him or even a back ready to go for us. But we’ve made some adjustments.

“We still have our double tight end sets and we’ll do the best we can. You might see some different plays and different sets this week.’’