I don't think it really shook out that way. My view of it is that Sue Robinson is a separate entity from the NFL with no interest in the NFL so discriminating between the magnitude of punishments isn't really her business. Inserting her own morals pertaining to how severe the punishment should be wouldn't really be appropriate considering whatever her reasoning might be appealed anyways. So knowing that she stuck with the precedent and gave the league a lot of leeway to clean up the PCP and set new precedent with SA cases to avoid situations like this in the future. The NFL "looking like a good guy" is just kind of incidental its explicitly in their interest to punish Watson heavily. So I don't think that the 6 game suspension is essentially a part in some contrived narrative put together by the NFL and Sue Robinson more than the natural way both parties should handle this considering historical precedent and the new CBA.