Sign up to get Today’s Best Cartoons in your inbox
Join 350,000+ subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of
The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.
You are now subscribed
Your newsletter sign-up was successful
Want to add more newsletters?
An account already exists for this email address, please log in.
ESPN suspends Bill Simmons for trashing Roger Goodell and the NFL on Ray Rice scandal
ESPN suspended popular sports commentator Bill Simmons for three weeks, following a set of provocative — and obscentiy-filled — comments about NFL commissioner Roger Goodell's handling of the Ray Rice scandal.
ESPN announced the suspension in a statement:
Every employee must be accountable to ESPN and those engaged in our editorial operations must also operate within ESPN's journalistic standards. We have worked hard to ensure that our recent NFL coverage has met that criteria. Bill Simmons did not meet those obligations in a recent podcast, and as a result we have suspended him for three weeks. [ESPN]
"Goodell, if he didn't know what was on that tape, he's a liar," Simmons said in his podcast on Monday. He went on to add: "For all these people to pretend they didn't know is such f--king bulls--t. It really is, it's such f--king bulls--t. For him to go into that press conference and pretend otherwise — I was so insulted."
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.
Join more than 350,000 subscribers and keep yourself informed with a selection of The Week’s most interesting, enlightening and entertaining stories - plus daily puzzles.
And as USA Today points out, Simmons also practically dared somebody to try to punish him for his comments: "I really hope somebody calls me or emails me and says I'm in trouble for anything I say about Roger Goodell, because if one person says that to me, I'm going public. You leave me alone. The commissioner's a liar and I get to talk about that on my podcast. Thank you."
To be clear, though, ESPN's own straight reporting has uncovered "a pattern of misinformation and misdirection employed by the Ravens and the NFL since that February night."
Sign up to get Today’s Best Cartoons in your inbox
Funniest, thought-provoking editorial cartoons, delivered each weekday
