ESPN announced on Wednesday that they have suspended commentator and analyst Bill Simmons for three weeks after his remarks on a podcast criticizing Roger Goodell’s handling of the recent incidents involving NFL players.

In a statement released by the company, ESPN said that the suspension is the result of Simmons’ failure to “operate within ESPN’s journalistic standards.’’ See the full text of the statement below.

“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.’’

In Monday’s edition of Simmons’ “B.S. Report’’ podcast, Simmons was heavily critical of the NFL commissioner, even using profanities to describe how he felt about Goodell telling the media last week that he didn’t know what happened between Ray Rice and Janay Palmer before he saw the video.


“I just think not enough is being made out of the fact that they knew about the tape and they knew what was on it,’’ Simmons said. “Goodell, if he didn’t know what was on that tape, he’s a liar.’’

In the podcast, Simmons also seemed to challenge ESPN to punish him for speaking up against the commissioner.