Speaking Friday at his annual Super Bowl-week news conference, Goodell said fans "expect solutions ... and we should deliver" on a new collective bargaining agreement.
The NFL Players Association said Thursday it is bracing for a lockout in 2011 after the current labor pact expires. Goodell said he and the league's owners want an agreement and it's "absolutely false" that owners would want to see a work stoppage.
"I don't think anybody wants to see a work stoppage," Goodell said. "There are no benefits to that. If it comes to anything like that, we would all have failed."
Goodell added that there is no contingency plan for the 2012 Super Bowl, on the chance that no football is played in 2011.
"We still have a lot of time and a lot of important opportunities here to structure something that makes sense for everybody," Goodell said.
NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith said Thursday the union views the chance of a lockout as a "14" on a scale of 1-to-10, something Goodell said he hopes won't become a "self-fulfilling prophecy."
"I couldn't make that prediction, and I sure hope he's wrong," Goodell said.
"Right now we don't need a lot of focus on that. We need to take advantage of the opportunity we have right now to structure an agreement and sit down and negotiate. That's how this is going to get done, and we will have an agreement. It's just a matter of when, but talking about options like work stoppages is not going to get us there."
Goodell has also said he doesn't agree with the union's contention that owners are insisting on an 18 percent player pay cut.
"The players should be paid fairly and they should be paid well," he said. "And I assure you that they will."
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