The San Francisco 49ers endured yet another injury-riddled season last year. Before the postseason, key players like Nick Bosa, Fred Warner and George Kittle dealt with season-ending injuries. Even quarterback Brock Purdy missed time, forcing backup Mac Jones to step in for eight starts.
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And since this is not anything new (the team has seen star players injured year after year), a theory surfaced on social media that the electrical substation near their training facility and Levi’s Stadium was playing a role. Online sleuths started claiming the substation emits a significant external electric field that may affect players’ collagen and tendons, leading to more soft tissue injuries.
Moreover, the 49ers themselves mentioned after the regular season that they plan to look into this matter. And that brings us to the current claim.
Claim: Worried about risking their players’ health, both the New England Patriots and Seattle Seahawks, who are set to play at Levi’s Stadium for Super Bowl LX, are avoiding the 49ers’ practice facility.
The Patriots have reportedly been practicing at Stanford in Palo Alto, while the Seahawks are training at San Jose State in San Jose. These locations sit over 10 miles away from Levi’s Stadium.
Source of the Claim: Several NFL news aggregators and major social media pages, including Dov Kleiman, Barstool Sports, FootballForever, Oursf49ers, and many others, have circulated posts about the situation. They’ve claimed that both teams are potentially steering clear of the 49ers’ facility because of the nearby substation.
Verdict: False. The practice sites, Stanford and San Jose State, were assigned to Super Bowl teams well in advance. In fact, when Levi’s Stadium previously hosted Super Bowl 50 ten years back, the Panthers practiced at San Jose State while the Broncos held their sessions at Stanford.
Even if the 49ers had made the Super Bowl this season, they would have used San Jose State as the designated home team facility, while the AFC representative would have practiced at Stanford.
The chief medical official for the league itself, Dr. Allen Sills, recently addressed the concern. While they did not outright dismiss the substation theory, they made it clear that the theory lacks any scientific backing.
“I’m not familiar with anything in the sports medicine literature that supports those associations,” Sills said, as per CBS Sports. “But I would also tell you that injury causation is really complex. If you think about biology and medicine, you don’t have usually one single factor that drives biological systems.”
It’s now safe to say that where there is smoke, there is not always fire. Football is a physical sport which will lead to season-ending injuries, sometimes for just one team. And that team has been the Niners for a few years. And if you’re still not convinced, the team will surely make a statement on their findings sooner rather than later.
