ESPN suspended the commentator Bill Simmons for three weeks on Wednesday, a day after he launched an obscenity-laced tirade against N.F.L. Commissioner Roger Goodell.
On a podcast on Grantland, the sports site owned by ESPN, Simmons sharply criticized Goodell's handling of the Ray Rice domestic violence case and called him a liar.
'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. I'm just saying it. He is lying. I think that dude is lying. If you put him up on a lie detector test that guy would fail.
'And for him to go in that press conference and pretend otherwise, I was so insulted. I really was.'
Simmons challenged ESPN to discipline him for his words: 'You leave me alone. The commissioner is a liar, and I get to talk about that on my podcast.'
In a statement about the suspension, ESPN said: '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 N.F.L. 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.'
ESPN suspended its commentator Stephen A. Smith in July for a week after he suggested Rice's wife, Janay Palmer, could have provoked his attack on her.
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