Bill Simmons -- SUSPENDED By ESPN ... After Daring Company To Suspend Him

Bill Simmons has been suspended by ESPN -- after ripping into NFL commish Roger Goodell on his podcast and then DARING the network to punish him for it.

Simmons basically put his bosses on blast -- after trashing Goodell and then saying, "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. You leave me alone. The commissioner’s a liar and I get to talk about that on my podcast. Thank you.”

Apparently not.

Because moments ago, ESPN announced Simmons will be suspended for THREE WEEKS ... and issued the following explanation:

"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."