Think the NFL stands for "National Felon League?" Well, walk that thought back for a penalty.

Researchers have found the general population is twice as likely to commit a crime as is a player in the National Football League.

The scholars compared the arrest rates of 1,952 NFL players with the overall arrest rates for men in the same age range — from 20 to 39 years old.

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After crunching the numbers at the University of Texas at Dallas and Florida State University in Tallahassee, they found that in most years, the arrest rate for the general population was one to two times higher than for pro-football players.

"This study was surprising because of the narrative that exists out there that the NFL has a crime problem," Alex Piquero, a University of Texas at Dallas criminology professor and co-author of the study, told Reuters. "But the majority of NFL players don't commit crimes. People lose sight of that."

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The study — "The National Felon League?: A comparison of NFL arrests to general population arrests" — was published online in the Journal of Criminal Justice and will appear in the October issue.

(READ more from Reuters) — Photo: Keith Allison, CC

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