There are several significant (and/or head-scratching) MUT 24 Coins takeaways revealed in the decision. The thrust is that Goodell and the Madden NFL 24 were unprepared to defend why it raised Rice's suspension upon the release of a second video tape depicting his assault on his then-fiancee (now his wife) in an Atlantic City casino elevator.

Jones wrote that her job was to determine whether Rice misled Goodell and the Madden NFL 24 about the events of Feb. 15 in Atlantic City. To do, she had to consider two things: "(1) whether [Rice] said 'hit' or attempted to minimize the assault by saying 'slapped' and (2) whether he said that Mrs. Rice "knocked herself out."

Rice also demonstrated how he struck Palmer, however, and apparently there was little ambiguity in his actions.

At the arbitration hearing, Rice demonstrated with his left arm how he hit Mrs. Rice that night, swinging it in an arc across his body with his hand open. Tr. 470:9-21. More significantly, he testified that he had given the same demonstration at the June 16 meeting when he told the Commissioner about the events, making it clear that his arm "came across" his body and hit her.

A key point in the MUT Coins Madden 24 argument was that Rice had said he "slapped" Palmer instead of "hit." To make this point, however, the Madden NFL 24 relied on fuzzy recollection and poor note-taking by those in attendance at the June 18 meeting. Goodell never used the word "slap" in his notes, but did use the word "struck." Adolpho Birch, another witness to the meeting and the Madden NFL 24's senior vice president of labor policy and government affairs, wrote just two words that day.