Chart assignment
Charts to read and discuss
Read each chart, then answer its questions. Every chart shows its source and date; open it for a table of the numbers and the data to download.
Chart 1 of 2 · NFL
How has your NFL team done each season since 1999?
The interactive chart needs JavaScript. The numbers are on the chart's page.
Choose any NFL team to see its points scored, points allowed and wins each regular season since 1999, next to the NFL average. It opens with the Kansas City Chiefs, who scored 21.3 points a game in the 2025 regular season; their high since 1999 was 35.3, in 2018. Teams that moved include their old cities' seasons (the Raiders' in Oakland, the Chargers' in San Diego, the Rams' in St. Louis), and the Houston Texans start in 2002, their first season. Seasons grew from 16 games to 17 in 2021, so points are per game.
Questions to discuss
- In one sentence of your own, what does this chart show?
- Find the biggest change or difference in the chart. What might explain it?
- Who collected these numbers, and how recent are they? What else would you want to know before drawing a conclusion?
Source: nflverse, NFL schedules and scores (nflverse-data) (CC BY 4.0 (nflverse)) · Data as of Jan 4, 2026
Open the chart and its numbersChart 2 of 2 · Federal budget
How big is the federal debt compared with the economy?
The interactive chart needs JavaScript. The numbers are on the chart's page.
At the end of fiscal 2026 the federal debt was 125% of a year's GDP, everything the U.S. economy produces in a year. It fell from 96% in 1948 to a low of 32% in 1981, passed 100% in 2013 and jumped to 126% in 2020. This is total debt, including what the government owes its own trust funds, divided by GDP over the same fiscal year; it starts in 1948 because BEA's quarterly GDP starts in 1947, and recent GDP figures are revised.
How to read this chart
Each point divides the federal government's total debt by GDP, everything the U.S. economy produces in a year. At 100%, the debt equals one year of the whole economy's output. Comparing debt with the economy's size, instead of in dollars, makes years decades apart fair to compare.
Questions to discuss
- When was the debt smallest compared with the economy, and when was it largest?
- The debt can grow in dollars while this percentage falls. How is that possible?
- Pick a big jump on the chart. What events could make the government borrow much more in a short time?
Source: U.S. Treasury Fiscal Data, Historical Debt Outstanding; GDP from the Bureau of Economic Analysis (NIPA Table 1.1.5) (Public domain (U.S. government work)) · Data as of Sep 30, 2026
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