T
he 2025 season did not end the way that the San Francisco 49ers were hoping. Finishing the regular season at 12-5 and making the playoffs after a one year absence, the 49ers upset the Philadelphia Eagles on the road but saw their season come to a screeching halt with a 41-6 loss to the Seattle Seahawks in the divisional round. Back to the drawing board, the 49ers will go into a very important offseason ready to retool their roster to get it back into Super Bowl contention.
But once again, the biggest issue that plagued the 49ers this season was injuries. The most injured team in all of football, the 49ers lost several key stars to long term injuries including Fred Warner, Nick Bosa, George Kittle and Brock Purdy, among others. While the 49ers have emerged as one of the most dominant teams in the league under the tutelage of head coach Kyle Shanahan, injuries have plagued the 49ers over the last nine seasons. Well there may be an exterior factor that is contributing to those injuries, and the 49ers will look into this offseason.
An Electrical Substation Could be to Blame
2025 was an impressive season in a lot of ways for the 49ers, but injuries once again prevented the team from reaching its full potential. The 49ers have had some very successful seasons, including Super Bowl berths in 2019 and ’23, but for much of Shanahan’s tenure, they have been the most injured team in the league. Well as it turns out, an electrical substation that is near the 49ers’ practice facility could be to blame, with a theory coming out earlier this season that suggests that the proximity of the substation, and the electromagnetic waves that are emitted from it, could be affecting the health of the players. At the end of season press conference, general manager John Lynch said that is something they will look into.
“Because it deals with allegedly the health and safety of our players, I think you have to look into everything,” Lynch said. “We’ve been reaching out to anyone and everyone to see, does a study exist other than a guy sticking an apparatus underneath the fence and coming up with a number that I have no idea what that means? That’s what we know exists. We’ve heard that debunked. … The health and safety of our players is of the utmost priority. We pore into it. Our ownership, Jed [York] is tremendous in terms of resources, and we’ll always be cognizant of things. I know that a lot of games have been won at this facility since it opened, but yeah, we aren’t going to turn a blind eye.”
The theory has been alluded to by some 49ers players and members of the organization but it has been shot down by medical professionals and scientists, making its legitimacy questionable. Still, it is not far fetched to think that an electrical substation has something to do with the numerous soft tissue injuries that 49ers players have dealt with over the years.
49ers Injury Woes This Season
In addition to losing Bosa, Warner and Kittle to season-ending injuries while also having Purdy miss time with a toe injury, the 49ers also saw rookie Mykel Williams go down with a torn ACL and did not have wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk all season as he recovered from a torn ACL. But Lynch provided updates on some of the 49ers’ injured stars, and sounded optimistic that they would be back at full strength next season. And while the substation theory is something that Lynch and company will look into, he also acknowledged that injuries are part of football and you can’t eliminate them entirely.
“The fact of the matter is injuries are a part of this game,” Lynch said. “What we strive to do is never to eliminate injuries, but to mitigate injuries. And I think we have a lot of good processes. We’ll challenge them all. And that process has begun. It never frankly stopped. But yes, we’ll look at everything, and we’ll examine everything.”
San Francisco 49ers to Look More Into Viral Electrical Substation Theory