Bill Simmons suspended after profane rant on Roger Goodell
ESPN has suspended Bill聽Simmons for three weeks after he repeatedly called NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell a liar during a profane tirade on a podcast.
ESPN announced the suspension Wednesday.
"Every employee must be accountable to ESPN and those engaged in our editorial operations must also operate within ESPN's journalistic standards," ESPN said in a statement. "Bill聽Simmons did not meet those obligations in a recent podcast, and as a result we have suspended him for three weeks."
Simmons' podcast was released Tuesday. He said he thought Goodell lied about not knowing what was on a security video that showed former Ravens running back Ray Rice hitting his wife in an elevator.
鈥淕oodell, if he didn鈥檛 know what was on that tape, he鈥檚 a liar. I鈥檓 just saying it. He is lying. If you put him up on a lie detector test, that guy would fail. For all these people to pretend they didn鈥檛 know is such ... . It really is, it鈥檚 such ... . For him to go into that press conference and pretend otherwise -- I was so insulted.鈥�
Simmons then challenged ESPN.
鈥淚 really hope somebody calls me or emails me and says I鈥檓 in trouble for anything I say about Roger Goodell,鈥� Simmons said.聽 鈥淏ecause if one person says that to me, I鈥檓 going public. You leave me alone. The commissioner鈥檚 a liar and I get to talk about that on my podcast. ... Please, call me and say I鈥檓 in trouble. I dare you.鈥�
Simmons is the editor of the sports web site "Grantland," which is owned by ESPN. He also appears on ESPN's NBA studio shows.
This is the second time ESPN has suspended an employee over comments about the Ray Rice scandal. In late July, ESPN suspended sportscaster聽Stephen聽A.聽Smith聽for a week because of his comments about domestic abuse suggesting women should make sure that they don't do anything to provoke an attack.
During the Rice discussion,聽Smith聽alluded to women in abuse cases when he said, "Let's make sure we don't do anything to provoke wrong action ... we got to also make sure that you can do your part to do whatever you can do to make, to try to make sure it doesn't happen again."
Shortly after聽Smith's聽remarks, colleague Michelle Beadle responded on Twitter that "I was just forced to watch this morning's First Take. A) I'll never feel clean again B) I'm not aware that I can provoke my own beating."
