NFL Domestic Violence: How to arrests of Ray Rice, Adrian Peterson and compare with other players around the country?

wo weeks of the 2014 NFL season, the league is more popular than ever, but the product on the field has taken a back seat to recent controversies some of the best players in professional football. Domestic violence charges filed against Ray Rice and other NFL players have become national news.

NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has been criticized for failing to deliver appropriate punishments, and the league has been accused of not caring about women as a seemingly inordinate number of players have been arrested for domestic violence.

Does the NFL have a disproportionate problem of domestic violence? While the media attention surrounding the recent incidents may give that impression, the league has not experienced an excessive amount of domestic violence arrests.

"There is no evidence that I am aware that athletes are more prone to domestic violence than any other group of people in American society," Evan Stark, forensic social worker and professor emeritus at Rutgers University, told International Business Times. "I think it is a myth because there is much focus on athletes. There is so much publicity."

Stark, who has a doctorate in sociology and works in criminal cases involving domestic violence, said the level of abuse in the NFL and other professional sports is not greater than that of similar age groups in the general population. The statistics of the database US NFL Today Arrests support his claim.

Six NFL players have been arrested on charges of domestic violence since the start of the 2013 season, including Peterson's recent arrest for child abuse. Dating back to 2000, the unemployment rate of domestic violence in the NFL is significantly lower than the national average.

Based on the approximately 2,560 players on NFL teams in training camp and the regular season, Benjamin Morris FiveThirtyEight reports that the unemployment rate in the league of domestic violence is only 55.4 percent the national average. Of the 1,696 players that are currently on the list of the NFL, 0.7 percent had been arrested for domestic violence in the past nine years, for NBC News.

Generally, NFL players are arrested much less frequently than the general population, with an unemployment rate in the league reaching only 13 percent of the national average for men between the ages of 25 and 29 Looking specific crimes, however, domestic violence rates are closer to the national average than anything else.

After domestic violence, weapons offenses and nonviolent sex-crime are closer to the national average. NFL players are arrested for these crimes at a rate of 45.2 percent and 38.2 percent of the national average, respectively, compared with 55.4 percent of the national rate of arrest for domestic violence.

Some believe that the violent nature of football can contribute to domestic violence in the NFL. Former Pro Bowl linebacker and current CBS Sports analyst, Bart Scott said Sunday of "The NFL Today" playing football may have contributed to his anger issues.

"This off-season - has pulled me two years - I went and looked for specialists in mental health so that I could learn to manage my anger issues and things like that," Scott said. "What happens is that we tell everyone how light it, but no one teaches us how to turn it off."

Recent scandals have left NFL fans and members of the media for answers. Rice, who attended Rutgers University in 2005-2007, had a reputation around campus as being very "shy and gentle," said Stark. But many would find hard to believe after seeing the video of the former Super Bowl winner punched his wife (then girlfriend) in a hotel elevator.

Rice has been suspended indefinitely by the NFL, while Adrian Peterson has been deactivated by the Minnesota Vikings for an indefinite period of time. Greg Hardy of the Carolina Panthers, who is currently appealing his conviction for assaulting a woman, was deactivated in Week 2 and could face an impending league suspension.