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."
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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."
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