The losing side in the appeals court generally has 90 days to ask for the Supreme Court to review its case. The winning side then has 30 days to respond but can ask for an extension. The justices can act as soon as about three weeks after that second brief is filed, but there is no deadline on their end.

No money can be distributed in the case until all appeals are exhausted.

Q. What happens to the players, more than 100 of them, who opted out of the settlement and still have the right to sue the N.F.L.?

A. The appeals court ruling does not help the cases of those players. Judge Anita B. Brody of United States District Court, who has overseen the settlement since the hundreds of individual cases against the N.F.L. were consolidated in Philadelphia more than three years ago, can urge the players and the league to settle, perhaps for more than the players might have received if they had joined the settlement. The N.F.L. has an incentive to settle with those players because the judge has the discretion to send their cases back to the courts where they were first filed, forcing the league to spend a lot of time and money fighting them one by one. The N.F.L. could also wait for Judge Brody to rule on the question of whether the players’ cases should be governed by the league’s collective bargaining agreement, which could disqualify many of the claims.