It is an independent judge who will make the determination of whether Watson violated the personal conduct policy, and then goodell will set the suspension. Public perception is everything to the league and its conduct policies. The HBO feature was bad as is the continued stuff that keeps coming with additional accusers and details of his alleged conduct. Hardin has been reactionary the whole time and sounds desperate in his statements, and makes it sound like he doesn’t respect the women which is even worse from that side.
Goodell took a lot of heat for how he handled the ray Rice situation so needs to be careful. If Watson is out there playing while the public perception is still that he’s a lying serial sexual predator, he knows he could lose advertisers, etc. and the female fan base he’s tried so hard to build.