You probably could have predicted some gloating from Bill Simmons after an arbitrator overruled the NFL’s indefinite suspension of Ray Rice last week.
After all, the former federal judge who handed down that decision concluded that Rice didn’t lie to the league about assaulting his wife inside an Atlantic City hotel elevator — contradicting NFL commissioner Roger Goodell’s claim that the former Baltimore Ravens running back was “ambiguous” about what exactly transpired.
Simmons, the multimedia sports commentator and editor-in-chief of the ESPN-owned Grantland.com, famously earned a suspension in September after he called bull on Goodell’s claim and dared his bosses to punish him for repeatedly calling the commissioner a “liar.”
On his podcast Monday, Simmons found a way to address Rice’s overturned suspension by making light of his own.
Simmons was talking to “B.S. Report” regular Sal Iacono as the two discussed the latest NFL betting lines.
“So, Sal,” he began, “it turns out an independent judge —”
Right then, Simmons was cut off by the sound of hold music.
The gag continued like that. Simmons would begin to make a point about Rice’s successful appeal and then, right on cue, the Muzak would resume.
“God, I don’t want to be suspended again,” Iacono said. “Go ahead, keep going.”
An ESPN spokesperson declined to comment about the bit to TPM on Tuesday.
The arbitrator’s decision delivered some righteous vindication to Simmons, whose three-week suspension made him something of a martyr to his legions of fans.
It was on his podcast in September when Simmons asserted that Goodell lied about not knowing what happened in the hotel elevator until TMZ released surveillance footage showing Rice knocking his wife unconscious.
“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, thank you. Please, call me and say I’m in trouble. I dare you.”
ESPN’s higher-ups took the dare, suspending Simmons two days after that podcast ran.
“Every employee must be accountable to ESPN and those engaged in our editorial operations must also operate within ESPN’s journalistic standards,” the company said in a statement announcing the suspension. “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.”
Listen to Monday’s exchange, via Awful Announcing:
Since Simmons also used swear words in the podcast that got him suspended, ESPN can say that was why they made him sit in the corner, not for calling Goodell a liar. A lot of people have been calling Goodell a liar all along.
True, but very few of them work for a company that partners with the NFL. As long as ESPN holds the Monday Night Football franchise, for which it is paying the NFL $15.2 billion through 2021, more than a little servile obedience will be displayed where the NFL commissioner is concerned.
Get 'em, Bill!
“ESPN’s journalistic standards,”
Which apparently include boot-licking and ass-sniffing the commissioner of the NFL.
Good for Simmons. The ESPN bosses didn’t become bosses by being Boy Scouts or moral creatures. They are filthy corporate lucre-ists in awe of Goodell/NFL’s ability to mint money and share it with them. ESPN, like ABC News, is owned by Disney Inc., a corporation that has repeatedly proved it has no journalistic or ethical standards beyond selling its few remaining scruples for 30 pieces of silver every day and in every way.