George Kittle’s season got here to an finish final Sunday when the star tight finish tore his proper Achilles tendon, including to the 49ers’ seemingly endless checklist of accidents.
The harm was inopportune timing for San Francisco, which was nonetheless a good distance from locking up its win over Philadelphia and now heads to Seattle to tackle the Seahawks within the Divisional Spherical on Saturday, but it surely additionally added gasoline to the hearth of a wild conspiracy concept taking maintain on-line.
The speculation facilities across the 49ers’ apply facility, which is linked to Levi’s Stadium and sits simply north of {an electrical} substation in Santa Clara, Calif.
Whereas grumblings in regards to the substation on social media have been occurring for months, the claims took off earlier in January when self-described circadian well being and biophysics skilled Peter Cowan went viral on X, claiming the 49ers’ harm issues are sitting proper below their nostril.
“Low-frequency electromagnetic fields can degrade collagen, weaken tendons, and trigger soft-tissue harm at ranges regulators name ‘secure,’” Cowan, who runs a wellness heart that focuses on “harmonizing your electromagnetic setting,” wrote in the beginning of a prolonged publish.
In early December, Cowan went to the city-owned Silicon Valley Energy’s Mission Substation and claimed to have calculated an elevated degree of “milligauss,” which is a measurement of the power of a magnetic discipline.
Cowan later argued on his Substack that the substation represents a “continual” environmental issue distinctive to the 49ers — a declare harm information doesn’t totally help.
The tight, ready-made concept for why numerous star 49ers over the previous few years like Christian McCaffrey, Nick Bosa, Fred Warner, Deebo Samuel, Jimmy Garoppolo, NaVorro Bowman, Kittle and lots of others have gone down with devastating accidents struck a nerve, with Cowan’s authentic publish garnering 22 million views and counting.
The reply doesn’t seem so clean-cut.
Cowan is correct — the 49ers have been among the many NFL’s most-injured groups lately.
Heading into 2025, San Francisco led the league with 101.5 common “adjusted video games misplaced” per season over the previous decade, in response to longtime harm analyst Aaron Schatz.
The second- and third-most injury-riddled groups over that interval, the Giants (94.8 AGL) and Commanders (91.9 AGL), respectively, weren’t far behind, although, and there isn’t any identified electrical substation close to their amenities.
“It’s not an enormous outlier,” Schatz informed The Publish. “…They led the league, however not by leaps and bounds.”
The 49ers have practiced on the Santa Clara facility for the reason that late Nineteen Eighties, effectively earlier than shifting into Levi’s Stadium in 2014, however harm issues tied to the positioning are a comparatively current phenomenon.
In 11 seasons earlier than 2013, San Francisco ranked among the many more healthy groups within the league, undercutting the concept that the ability itself has lengthy been an issue.
The 49ers gained three Tremendous Bowls in seven seasons after shifting into the ability, and have since featured two of essentially the most sturdy talent gamers in NFL historical past — Jerry Rice and Frank Gore.
The scientific neighborhood is iffy — at greatest — on the subject, however not everyone seems to be throwing Cowan’s claims out the window.
NYU radiology professor Christopher Collins was dismissive of the concept that the substation could possibly be inflicting 49er accidents, telling SFGate that he “truthfully can’t think about” the likelihood.
Collins informed the outlet that an MRI is “the closest [he] can get to explaining how some form of electromagnetic discipline could possibly be associated to accidents. However there’s actually no manner that would occur with energy traces on this scenario. It’s simply not attainable.”
Frank de Vocht, an EMF at Bristol Medical College, stated the speculation was “nonsense” in a dialog with the Washington Publish.
College of Albany environmental well being professor David O. Carpenter had a special take.
In an e-mail to The Publish on Friday, Carpenter wrote that he did “not discover it to be a loopy speculation,” however stopped in need of declaring that “EMFs are liable for the accidents suffered by the 49ers.”
“Nobody needs to imagine that one thing that we’re all uncovered to and one thing that’s such an integral a part of our life might be harmful in extra, and that’s a part of the rationale it’s ignored,” he continued.
Joel M. Moskowitz, a UC Berkeley public well being researcher who research EMF publicity, informed The Publish he “wouldn’t rule out a synergistic impact from extraordinarily low frequency EMFs.”
Whereas 49ers huge receiver Kendrick Bourne joked about “that energy plant” after Sunday’s win, it seems some NFL gamers are – and have been – legitimately involved.
Former 49ers guard Jon Feliciano, who performed 16 video games for San Francisco in 2023 and spent the 2024 season on IR with the crew, stated gamers have lengthy believed one thing was occurring with the substation.
“[The substation] was undoubtedly a dialog the entire two years I used to be there,” Feliciano stated in a video posted to Instagram this week.
“I really imagine in it … The highest-tier athletes are undoubtedly taking that s–t into concern.”
He apparently isn’t alone.
Some brokers informed the Washington Publish that some gamers “had actual issues about EMF,” and speculated that it may give the 49ers bother attracting exterior expertise.
“They’re gonna have to maneuver [the practice facility],” one agent informed the Washington Publish.
With subsequent month’s Tremendous Bowl in Santa Clara, the substation dialog could be beginning.
If the 49ers can pull off two highway upsets beginning Saturday evening, they’ll have an opportunity to hoist the Lombardi Trophy simply yards from the substation.
Kittle gained’t be on the sphere, although.
The blame is anybody’s guess.
