Herman is not an employee at will. You don't just go into the office and say "Pack up your office. We'll mail you last week's pay check." He likely has some objective milestones and the ubiquitous "for cause" provision. The "for clause" provision is typically invoked for situations like Steve Sarkisian's behavior at booster events or Mike Price hitting the strip joints shortly after joining AL. You typically get out of paying severance if terminated "for cause." In Herman's case, I seriously doubt that the "for cause" provision would be invoked for the EOT matter. It, by itself, doesn't rise to the level of a typical "for cause" matter. Rather, CDC would aggregate this issue together with many other leadership issues and basically say "We want to go in another direction". By waiting until Dec. 1, the negotiation with the attorneys starts from a lower number.