Bill Simmons Dares ESPN To Say Anything To Him About His Goodell Rant....ESPN Promptly Suspends Simmons For 3 Weeks
LATimes - ESPN analyst Bill Simmons has been suspended for three weeks after he made profane comments about NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell during a podcast.In addition, Simmons is not allowed to use Twitter while suspended, an ESPN spokesman confirmed to The Times. Simmons, also the editor-in-chief of Grantland.com, then dared ESPN to reprimand him for what he said during the same podcast. “I really hope somebody calls me or emails me and says I’m in trouble for anything I say about Roger Goodell,” Simmons said. “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. … Please, call me and say I’m in trouble. I dare you.” ESPN did just that. “Every employee must be accountable to ESPN and those engaged in our editorial operations must also operate within ESPN’s journalistic standards,” it said in a statement. “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.”
I’m not gonna lie. This story has wrapped my brain into a pretzel. If I’m understanding this correctly Simmons basically dared ESPN to reprimand him for calling Goodell a liar on his podcast, which to be honest I feel like is all everybody at ESPN has been saying for the past 2 weeks. ESPN promptly responds by suspending him and suddenly Simmons street credibility is through the roof. To quote Vince Lombardi….what the hell is going on out here! Seriously this feels like an elaborate plan that everybody was in on it except us. Like Simmons already had a planned vacation or something. It feels vaguely reminiscent to when Katie Nolan went on a rant against Fox for not having enough women sports anchors and then instantly becomes Fox’s go to woman’s sports anchor.
Bottomline is I feel like I’m being played here. Stephen A Smith basically got a slap on the wrist for saying chicks have to do a better job not provoking domestic abuse and Simmons gets 3 weeks for essentially stating that the sky is blue? Very odd. I guess time will tell since Simmons said if ESPN even dared contact him about his rant he’d go public. Looks like we’re going to find out exactly what going public means. I just hope this isn’t Spooky Ghost scam part II. Until further notice #freesimmons? So confused right now.