My experience married to a lawyer, is in every type of case (non-criminal), the biggest fear is the plaintiff actually going to court. At that point, they lose control of the outcome and luck and social factors, i.e. jurors, judges, witness likability, etc now suddenly become critical. In most cases they would rather settle for 10x than risk a 1% chance of losing in court and lose 100x. Alough if u do the math, over the long run it'll only cost them 1x per case. It's strange. I think, why they want the worse over the long run, but fixed amount, is it's easier for to account and budget for, as I understand they all have set pool of budgeted funds to draw from. Although I can't say I fully understand all the reasons.
Back to this case. The worse of all outcomes for Goodell (IMO) is if his appeal ruling sparks a trial. Where so many things can go wrong for him. If he's afraid of, losing, looking week, throwing his friends under the bus, giving the league a black eye, exposing his private communication, awaking blissfully obedient fans, ugly media exposure, possibly losing owner confidence, etc, etc, the strongest possibility of these happening are by the fickle whim of justice in the vagaries of court.
1. He will either cave almost completely. 0 games. 250K fine. Something that has precedent and within his rights, and would be tough to convince TB to continue to fight, and if he chose to, tough to get it past a judge, and tough to win.
2. He's an idiot. No changes. And it goes to court and everything he doesn't want to happen, several mentioned above, are in play.
First and foremost I think Goodell looks out for #1, and saves his hide. This is not the fight he wants to pick. So I go with 0 games, 250K fine. Although the fine amount is debatable. He might go higher to show he still 'did something'. But the higher from precedent (50k) it gets, the more likely it'll get shot down in court and more like TB will take it there to get it. He'll go as high as he thinks he can get away with to that tipping point.
