Discussion: Bill Simmons Suspended After Baiting ESPN With Roger Goodell Rant

Discussion for article #228063

ridiculous.

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Gosh, in just a few weeks, the mainstream NFL goes from bastion of American tradition to a flailing sham of imagined masculinity with a dark, Solzhenitsyn-esque underbelly of violence, denial and sexual excess. Eeeesch.

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The NFL is a monopoly that doesn’t pay taxes and is accountable to no one but billionaire owners.You want to bet Goddell pushed for this? They threatened to pull MNF from ESPN over a series on the dark underbelly of the NFL. The government needs to pull their tax exempt status toot sweet.

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Stupid move by ESPN.

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Simmons is grandstanding here and trying to make a martyr of himself, but ESPN did completely take the bait, too.

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Just think. If Simmons had beaten his wife and dragged her unconscious from an elevator, he would have been suspended for only 2 weeks.

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ESPN is asking us to choose between itself and Bill Simmons? That’s not a good idea.

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Maybe Simmons should have punched a female. That would have garnered only a 2 day suspension.

And isn’t ESPN the network that had (has?) Ray Lewis on its payroll?

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Somehow his alleged grandstanding pales in comparison to the weight of the topic he was addressing. And that part of the broadcast was only several minutes long. He didn’t use it as a platform to go on and on about it.

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Yesterday his podcast was just one of several that most of us would never hear about, drifting off in the ephemera of the internet. Today his words are plastered across every major news site in the nation.
Good job ESPN.

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You even write great comments out of character.

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Hey, I like Bill Simmons. Ordinarily, he’s really funny. And in this case I don’t see that he was trying to make a martyr out of himself; he didn’t imagine that he was going to get suspended (let alone for 3 weeks!) for saying that. Goodell obviously has been lying, but it’s received scant notice. It’s nice to see someone trying to bring this to people’s attention.

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I believe that both Simmons and ESPN knew what they were doing here. Maybe even collaborated. The network has an awkward relationship with the NFL, being both a content provider and a source of editorial content such as Simmons. The network itself can’t be seen to be taking too harsh a stance on the actions of the league, but I wouldn’t put it past them to encourage their commentators to make strong statements. Simmons is a relatively independent voice on an otherwise party-line network, so he’s a perfect choice to play the fall guy here. And the suspension from the network provides ESPN with some cover while at the same time guarantees that Simmons’ rant goes viral. Oh, and fuck the NFL. I’m a huge football fan, but many of the actions the league has taken under Goodell’s “leadership” have been incredibly disappointing.

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Yup. See how long before Olbermann is out the door after him for criticizing ESPN live during his next bit.

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ESPN has journalistic standards? Who knew. And if those journalistic standards do indeed exist, Simmons seems to be exhibiting them, salty language and all. The problem with what he said, for ESPN, is that they now put in a situation to either confirm or deny that Goodell is lying, when let’s face it, we all know he is. They would rather not talk about it at all, so they choose to shoot the messenger.

ESPN couldn’t have done more to underline that Simmons was 100% right in his comments.

I’m really not sure how you concluded that I think otherwise. That was, literally, the only comment on the internet I’ve ever made about Simmons’s grandstanding (I mean, come on, he said “Please, call me and say I’m in trouble, I dare you,” how’s that not grandstanding?) compared to dozens of comments I’ve made blasting Goodell for creating his own shit stew and having to eat it.

It hasn’t received scant notice, everyone’s noticed. Even the NFL’s unofficial official mouthpiece reporters (Schefter, King, Mortensen, McManus, etc.) have called Goodell out on it, some more directly than others, because the NFL played them and made them look stupid/incompetent. I don’t know anyone who actually believes Goodell right now.

I’m going to suspend my reading/viewing of ESPN for three weeks. cbssports.com it is!