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Updated at 2:00 p.m.

The NFL's bizarre decision to "suspend" Terrelle Pryor for the first five games of his professional career is pure window dressing. It's the NFL wagging a finger at Pryor for his misdeeds at Ohio State.

But it is a dangerous precedent that sets up Commissioner Roger Goodell to punish future college players, one league source said.

Everyone knows that Pryor is woefully unprepared to play in an NFL game this entire 2011 season, let alone immediately. No NFL general manager or coach in his right mind would select Pryor with the intention of rushing him hyper-speed into the pro game.

So the five-game suspension doesn't hurt Pryor or the team that drafts him. That's why neither Pryor's lawyer nor agent -- nor the NFL Players Association -- protested Goodell's ruling. It's a meaningless tradeoff, to them, for getting Pryor into Monday's NFL supplemental draft.

The danger is that it sets up Goodell to hand down discipline to future college players who are involved in acts (accepting improper benefits, etc.) that harm their college teams.

League spokesman Greg Aiello has said Goodell is empowered by the NFL Constitution and By-Laws to discipline Pryor under the "conduct detrimental to the league" clause.

"This is going to bleed over into the regular draft," opined the source. "What if Goodell decides certain guys in the regular draft can be subject to conditions prior to entering the NFL? It breaches a wall where you're going to be punished at the next level for things done in college."

Who's to say a future player who, say, got into a bar fight in college, like Browns rookie Jabaal Sheard, couldn't be punished by Goodell prior to the draft under this precedent?

That's why the NFLPA erred, said the source, in not challenging Goodell's ruling.

"With a 10-year collective bargaining agreement and unchecked authority, the league can make up the rules as they go along, as they just did in this case, " the source said.