The NFL is a business. Businesses don’t make money by firing their best employees.
You think Goodell is one of their best?
The NFL has now suspended Rice indefinitely.
It sounds enticingly axiomatic but the Ravens just disproved it by releasing Rice.
The NFL is full of bad actors; I have no sympathy for either side. However, if business is the watchword then in the Manhattanite bubble of the league office they are, at present, more concerned about cable talking heads on ESPN and elsewhere, especially now that non-sports media will be hurling the usual PC invective. It sounds mad but they will be more concerned with threats of boycotts by groups who don’t even watch the NFL than they will by their current paying customers.
For now, Rice is more of a symbol than a person and will be treated as such. It will come as absolutely no shock if his suspension is increased for PR purposes and it will come as no shock if and when he is signed by a team seeking a running back, with the usual cap-in-hand platitudes mouthed by front office types.
Employees that bring large quantities of bad press are not your best.
Except when the price of keeping that employee around (in terms of bad publicity and legal risk should the guy fail to control his temper and kill a fan with his bare hands) exceeds the value he brings in.