Maybe flag football isn’t a safer alternative for youngsters after all.

Flag football, which has surged in popularity along with parental concerns about the effects of tackling on children and young teens, actually produces higher injury rates for those players, according to a study by University of Iowa researchers.

The silver lining: Youth tackle football might not be as dangerous as you think.

The study, which examined 3,794 players in grades 2-7 in two tackle football leagues and one flag football league, is one of the largest to compare injury rates in the different types of football. It was published online last week in the Orthopaedic Journal of Sports Medicine.

“I think the take-home here is that youth tackle football is relatively safe, and that flag football may not be a safer alternative,” says Andrew Peterson, the study’s lead author, a clinical associate professor of pediatrics and orthopedics at the University of Iowa.