While the NFL did not place him on the Commissioner's Exempt list before today, the league did not rule it out later this week. As spelled out in the personal conduct policy, a player may be placed on the exempt list when he is criminally charged with a crime of violence or if commissioner Roger Goodell believes a person may have violated the policy. In this instance, Brown was not deemed to have fulfilled those requirements. Interestingly, Brown and the accuser engaged in settlement talks for months before the lawsuit was filed. Those were confidential, which may explain why so few people knew about it.