For nearly 24 hours, as of Thursday morning, #FreeSimmons was trending on Twitter, with a constant stream of outrage from social media users directed at ESPN over their suspension of Bill Simmons for his comments about Roger Goodell.
On a Grantland.com B.S. Report podcast published in the last few days (and since removed from the site, though still alive on SoundCloud), Simmons went off on a profane rant about the NFL Commissioner, calling him a "a liar" and dropping a few f-bombs about the situation.
"Goodell, if he didn’t know what was on that tape, he’s a liar. I’m just saying it. He is lying," Simmons said. "If you put him up on a lie detector test, that guy would fail. For all these people to pretend they didn’t know is such f---ing b---s---. It really is, it’s such f---ing b---s---. For him to go into that press conference and pretend otherwise ... I was so insulted."
Simmons also dared his bosses to "call me and say I'm in trouble" for his comments on Goodell.
"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," Simmons said. "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."
Simmons' bosses called his bluff.
"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. "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' suspension is not going over well with the general public. #FreeSimmons and "Bill Simmons" are trending nearly 24 hours after the suspension came across the wire.
Every ESPN tweet (like this totally unrelated one about Clayton Kershaw) is being met with a barrage of angry, tangentially-connected responses about Simmons' suspension.
The clip of Simmons talking is embedded below.
