I stumbled upon an interesting data set that lists the home states of more than 20,000 NFL players in history. I wondered: Do some states send a disproportionate amount of players to the pros?

This map shows which mainland states produced the most NFL players. As one might expect, it looks like a population map. Texas and California, the nation's two most-populous states, produced the most players — more than 2,000 apiece. Vermont, which trails only the District of Columbia and Wyoming in population as of the 2010 Census, produced the fewest players:

But the map changes when state population is figured in. This map shows the rate of NFL players based on the 2010 population. Louisiana and Mississippi, which rank 25th and 31st in population, respectively, send more players per-person to the NFL than other states:

Of course, I should have used the male population, but there's only so much time in my lunch break — and the maps wouldn't look significantly different.