ESPN Suspends Bill Simmons After Simmons Dares ESPN to Punish Him For His Anti-NFL Remarks

ESPN suspended Bill Simmons for three weeks on Wednesday in response to comments Simmons made during Monday's edition of his podcast, in which he blasted NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell in a profanity-laced tirade

First, Simmons called Goodell a liar, referencing the commissioner's response to the Ray Rice domestic abuse scandal.

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"Goodell, if he didn't know what was on that tape, he's a liar. I'm just saying it. He is lying. If you put him up on a lie detector test, that guy would fail," Simmons said. "For all these people to pretend they didn't know is such [expletive] [expletive]. It really is, it's such [expletive] [expletive]. For him to go into that press conference and pretend otherwise—I was so insulted."

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By the way, if you're wondering which expletives Simmons used, one of them may or may not match the title of his podcast, The B.S. Report. 

Simmons then continued, "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."

On Wednesday, ESPN  released the following 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."

Simmons was previously suspended from Twitter in March 2013 over comments he made regarding ESPN programming.

Did ESPN make the right call?