John Glennon

jglennon@tennessean.com

The Titans say they are making progress toward satisfying NFL commissioner Roger Goodell’s desire for a singular owner to represent the franchise.

In response to Goodell comments about the Titans during his state of the league address on Friday at the site of Super Bowl 50, Titans president and CEO Steve Underwood issued a statement saying controlling owner Amy Adams Strunk should soon have complete authority to represent the team.

"Commissioner Goodell's remarks very ably set out the standard our club and the Adams family have been working with the league staff to satisfy,” Underwood said in the statement. “We are confident that the next time we meet with the Commissioner, he will be satisfied that Amy Adams Strunk has exactly what he said she needs — local operating control and full authority to represent the Titans in league decisions.

"Additionally, Mrs. Strunk — who is proud to be one of the few female controlling owners in the NFL — would like to take this opportunity to express her strong support for the Commissioner's efforts to position the league at the forefront of advancing the role of women in sports."

Titans owner promises to fix �unacceptable� results

Earlier in the day, Goodell shed more light on the longstanding issues between the league and the Titans’ ownership group.

Adams Strunk and Susie Adams Smith, daughters of former owner Bud Adams, have 33 percent ownership each of the parent company which owns the Titans, and the family of Adams’ deceased son, Kenneth Adams III, also has one-third ownership — his grandsons, Kenneth IV (11 percent) and Barclay Cunningham Adams (11 percent), and their mother, Susan Lewis (11 percent).

“We have ownership policies. Ownership policies are lengthy, but essentially they require a single owner to represent the club locally but also at the league level,” Goodell said in response to a question from ESPN about the Titans. “We work on the basis of 32 individual owners, each having a vote and when league matters come up, whatever they may be, we work on a vote of 24 of the 32.

“It’s a very important principle to owners and their partners. They want to know who their partner is. They want to know that they’re responsible for how the team is operated locally and they want to know that their partner is sitting at the table when they’re making difficult decisions.”

Titans owner Adams Strunk comments on GM, coach hirings

Adams Strunk was not present at the recent owners’ meetings in Houston, with the team saying she was concentrating on the searches for a new general manager and coach. Underwood represented the Titans that day.

“We will try to encourage our policies to encourage (single ownership),” Goodell said. “We have to continue to work with the Tennessee ownership group to see how that’s going to conform with our policies. We’ll be meeting with our finance committee in the next few weeks and that’s a subject that will be discussed.”

Underwood said in a recent interview with The Tennessean that the Titans and the NFL have been discussing the ownership situation since Bud Adams’ death in 2013, though he didn’t delve into specifics.

“We’re working on it every day,” Underwood said. “We don’t want it to be a distraction. Sometimes the resolution of difficult problems can take a long time. We’re doing everything we need to do to fix whatever issues we have competitively. The rest of our businesses runs great. We’re on track to achieve all the goals we want to otherwise where our business operations are concerned.

State of the Titans according to Steve Underwood

“But we have never discussed the fixes we need to put in place where our ownership structure is concerned. We are continuing to work with the league on a daily, weekly monthly basis.”

Underwood has repeatedly said that the Titans are not for sale, and has also said the league has never indicated it is trying to force a sale of the team.

Reach John Glennon at 615-259-8262 and on Twitter @glennonsports.