The viral injury theory is gaining a whole lot of momentum.
If you ask any NFL fan who the most injured team in the league is, there’s a good chance that the majority would answer with the San Francisco 49ers. It seems like year after year, the pro football team in Southern California racks up an unreal amount of injuries, and this past season was much of the same.
The most recent injury the 49ers suffered before being bounced from the playoffs was a heartbreaking achilles tear for star tight end George Kittle. His injury came just before halftime of the 49ers’ NFC wild card matchup against the Philadelphia Eagles (in which they won), and it was the third time the highest-paid tight end in the NFL was sidelined with an injury this season.
And that’s far from the only player who had the injury bug for the San Francisco 49ers.
Quarterback Brock Purdy suffered a turf toe injury during a week 4 matchup against the Jacksonville Jaguars and ended up missing six games during the regular season, and star wide receiver Ricky Pearsall also missed nearly half of the regular season due to injuries. Wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk missed the entire season as he attempted to make a comeback from ACL and MCL injuries suffered last season, and defensive lineman Nick Bosa suffered a season-ending ACL injury all the way back in week 3 of the NFL season.
And it doesn’t just seem like the 49ers are the most injured team in the NFL. There’s actually a study that found they are statistically the most injured squad in the past decade. Many have tried to figure out why that’s the case, or if the team’s trainer is to blame. That would be too easy of an explanation, eh?
One idea that people are now really paying attention to is posed by a self-described scientist and EMF (electromagnetic field) researcher named Peter Cowan, who recently shared his theory about all of the 49ers’ injuries. He strongly believes that it can all be explained by the fact that the team’s practice facility and stadium sit beside a large electrical substation.
According to Cowan, consistent exposure to extremely low frequency electromagnetic fields is “degrading the collagen integrity in the players tendons, ligaments, and muscle-tendon junctions. The damage is subtle, until a routine cut or block ends in catastrophic rupture.”
The theory has been largely dismissed by doctors, but NFL players both on the 49ers and throughout the league have expressed concern. Some have even gone as far to tell their agents that they don’t want to play in San Francisco. That obviously creates a free-agency issue with the 49ers, and the noise around the electrical substation theory has gotten so loud that the team’s general manager, John Lynch, is now confirming that the 49ers are looking into it.
Here’s what the GM had to say when he was asked about it during his media availability:
“Because it deals with, allegedly, the health and safety of our players, you have to look into everything. Our guys have been. We’ve been reaching out to everyone to see if a study exists… we will look into it. We have. The healthy and safety of our players is of the upmost priority.”
From viral theory to legitimate concern. The story is already crazy, and the only way it could get crazier is if the San Francisco 49ers eventually do find out that the electrical substation next to their facility is contributing to the plague of injuries that their team faces year in and year out.
