The logic is very, very, very simple: I don't want to be Kovacs.
Now, one can parse what actually happened in that match and realize Kovacs maybe did things on his own, outside of early cards, which were simply not good enough at this level. But the simplest analysis is that he all stems from early yellow cards. And he's home.
If Anthony Taylor wants to referee the final, red carding Toni Kroos inside 20 minutes--no matter how obvious the cards might seem in a vacuum--is, at least in the back of his mind, a surefire way to ensure that can't happen