One of our goals for the playoffs special section in 2012 was a greater variety of storytelling techniques in the book.

To that end, I came up with a concept for an information graphic that broke down the offense, defense and special teams.

The Merc sports team really got behind the page and did additional reporting, pulling together data from the 49ers that put the overall rankings in historical context. 

The hard work we put in paid off: We won an award of excellence from the Society for News Design.

I was embroiled in some controversy regarding the judging of information graphics in 2013. You can read about that on Dr. Mario Garcia's blog.