49ers GM Shuts Down Substation Injury Theory: ‘Big Nothing Burger’

Forty-niners GM John Lynch has shut down the theory that an electrical substation was contributing to the team’s injury woes.

Lynch told reporters at the NFL league meetings Sunday in Phoenix that the organization hired an independent scientist to check whether the substation located next to Levi’s Stadium and the 49ers’ practice facility could be affecting the health of the team’s players.

“He basically said it was a big nothing burger,” Lynch said. “We’re safe. We’re in a safe place of work. The levels are 400 times less than an unsafe zone. So it’s a normal place of work, it’s a normal gym. We are safe, we’re healthy, and we feel really good about that.”

The theory started in January after a X/Twitter user named Peter Cowan wrote a series of posts suggesting the substation contributed to injuries to 49ers players, including Brock Purdy, Nick Bosa, and Fred Warner. 

Cowan wrote: “Low-frequency electromagnetic fields can degrade collagen, weaken tendons, and cause soft-tissue damage at levels regulators call ‘safe.’” He pointed out that the injuries to 49ers players were tendon and ligament tears.

San Francisco players had expressed concern over the theory in recent months. Fullback Kyle Juszczyk told FOS in January that he wanted the team to investigate the substation. Tight end George Kittle echoed the Harvard graduate’s sentiments.

Jerrold Bushberg, a radiology professor at UC Davis, told FOS in January that “there is no firmly established evidence” that the low-level exposures affect humans.

“These so-called ‘mechanisms’ have not been established, and many of the experiments are contradictory, and many of the experiments have exposures that either don’t relate specifically to 50-, 60-hertz magnetic fields, or are at much, much higher levels than what would be experienced at a practice level,” said Bushberg, who chairs the board of directors for the National Council on Radiation Protection and Measurements.