When star sports guy Bill Simmons dared ESPN to punish him after he called NFL commissioner Roger Goodell a liar, the network responded by suspending him for three weeks, docking him two weeks’ pay (his salary is reportedly over $5 million), and muting his online platforms. Well, except Instagram. Simmons, whose lifeblood is telling people what he thinks about everything all the time, returns to work today having served his sentence in relative (mandated) silence, with the exception of some loaded vacation images, in which his face says more than he can pack into an hour podcast.
Simmons, the New York Times reports, “is furious and has been talking a lot about whether ESPN is still the right place for him.” His contract is up next year, and while he could bolt for another conglomerate, there’s also the possibility he could try to build a Grantland-plus on his own, affording himself more freedom, “like Glenn Beck before him,” the Times offers.
Surely that was something to think about while getting a manicure, or on the golf course, along with the exact angle he should almost smugly smile to make sure the ESPN executives in Bristol got his message via Instagram. He nailed it:
