primetime
Pro Bowl Player
- Joined
- Jun 15, 2005
- Messages
- 13,627
- Reaction score
- 15,375
Per the CBA Goodell has no authority in this matter. The arbitrator is supposed to be neutral and comes from a list mutually approved approved by the league and the NFLPA.
The NFL is playing with home field advantage though because they get to set the initial penalty, and the arbitrator can adjust it from there. So the arbitrator would have to find something truly egregious to vacate the suspension entirely, which is usually why most of these result in no change or maybe a single game reduction.