But some former and current players say Goodell's changes are motivated in part by the lawsuit. To be sure, the threat is real enough that two sources with knowledge of the discussions say there's a deep split among owners: Some are open to settling the case.
But the key question is one Goodell sidestepped as recently as Super Bowl Sunday on "Face the Nation." "Do you now acknowledge," CBS's Bob Schieffer asked, "a link between the game and these concussions that people have been getting, some of these brain injuries?"
Goodell responded: "That's why we're investing in the research, so that we can answer the question: What is the link? What causes some of the injuries that our players are still dealing with?" Pressed by Schieffer, he said: "Well, Bob, again, we're going to let the medical individuals make those points. We are going to give them the money, advance that science."
Goodell has also appeared to try to manage how the health issue is portrayed. This past September, on the same day a study was released showing that NFL players are four times more likely than the U.S. general population to die from Alzheimer's or ALS, Goodell announced on NBC that the league was making a $30 million grant to the National Institutes of Health for brain-injury research.
ENLARGE
Goodell and the league office were furious with Terry Bradshaw after the Hall of Famer made disparaging remarks about the league's motives on player safety on "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno."
"I don't do things for public relations," Goodell told Time magazine in November. "I do things because they're the right thing to do, because I love the game." Behind the scenes, Goodell and league executives closely monitor reports by the NFL's broadcast partners. With increasing regularity, what they see angers Goodell and league execs, sources say.
In September the NBC Sports Network planned to run a piece produced by Sports Illustrated about spouses and caregivers of retired players. But in an email written a week before the piece was to air, a person involved in the production told a colleague "the NFL went nuclear and was trying to get it killed." Sources at both the NFL and NBC say they were not aware of any contact between them about the story. Ultimately, say SI and NBC, they had a disagreement about whether the piece should air. It never did.