There is a special kind of season that makes you question fate. Not in a dramatic Shakespearean way, more in the exhausted, starting-at-the-ceiling-at-2 a.m. way.
For the San Francisco 49ers, the past two years have felt like that. Every Sunday carried promise. Every Monday saw another MRI. Eventually, when the injuries pile up high enough, fans stop asking what happened and start asking what is going on.
And that’s how an electrical substation became part of the conversation.
Christian McCaffrey Refuted the Idea of One External Thing Causing a Season Worth of 49ers Injuries
Tucked beside Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara is an unglamorous but essential neighbour: a Silicon Valley Power electrical substation. It hums. It exists. It has been there for decades. And, according to a theory that gained popularity online a few months ago, it may also be quietly sabotaging the connective tissue of professional athletes.
The idea, first floated in a Substack post by Peter Cowan, suggests that low-frequency electromagnetic fields (EMFs) emitted from the substation could be weakening collagen in players’ tendons and ligaments, contributing to the 49ers’ recent rash of non-contact injuries.
Nonionizing radiation, the type emitted by substations, falls into the same general category as that produced by phones, Wi-Fi routers, and everyday electronics.
It sounds like something you’d read while half-awake and immediately text to a group chat with: “Okay but what if???”
DRAFT SEASON: PFSN’s FREE Mock Draft Simulator
Because the injury list has been brutal.
George Kittle tore his Achilles. Brandon Aiyuk suffered an ACL tear. Nick Bosa and Fred Warner endured season-ending injuries of their own. Brock Purdy missed extended time with toe and shoulder issues. Ricky Pearsall battled a lingering PCL problem.
Nevertheless, the conversation reached the locker room, because in today’s NFL, recovery is practically a religion. Which brings us to Christian McCaffrey.
The running back, who is famously meticulous about his body, refuted the idea that one external factor could explain a season’s worth of injuries.
“There’s too many variables,” he said on “Bussin With the Boys.” He talked about sleep, hydration, compensation patterns, collisions, the thousand tiny ways a football body absorbs stress.
At the same time, he did not mock the broader conversation about modern exposure. He acknowledged that EMFs, blue light, and constant device use aren’t necessarily meaningless, tying his comments to hydration and electrolyte balance.
What he rejected was the leap from curiosity to causation.
BE AN NFL GM: PFSN’s FREE Ultimate GM Simulator
“We had a shitty year when it comes to injuries. Some years are like that for a lot of teams and to say it comes from one thing is too broad of a statement.”
He added, “Let me tell you this right now, if I wasn’t on the Niners and someone was like, ‘Hey, dude. Knowing all this, do you wanna go play for the Niners?’ Yes, I would jump to go play for the Niners.”
He ranked seventh among all running backs in 2025 on PFSN’s RBi with a score of 78.1 and a C+ grade.
Also, science, as it tends to do, stepped in with a clipboard and raised an eyebrow.
During a league health and safety call, NFL chief medical officer Dr. Allen Sills directly challenged both the EMF theory and the claim that San Francisco leads the league in non-contact or lower-extremity injuries.
He noted there is no established sports medicine literature linking nonionizing EMF exposure to ligament or tendon damage, and explained that injury causation in football is a web of biomechanics, workload, recovery, contact, and, yes, randomness.
