The notion that the 49ers’ uptick in injuries flows from the proximity of an electrical substation to their practice facility — as nonsensical as it seems — continues to mushroom.
Appearing on Audacy’s You Better You Bet with Nick Kostos, 49ers receiver Kendrick Bourne addressed the power-plant point.
“I kind of buy it,” Bourne said. “I’m a conspiracy theorist, so I don’t know. Our grass is brown on that side and the soccer field on the other side is green. So that kind of trips me out a little bit, but I don’t know. It’s so much research they probably have to do, but whatever we can do to help prevent injuries, we got to look into. So [G.M.] John [Lynch] said he’s gonna do it, and I think he will. So it’s just crazy that that’s even a thing, but that thing is a crazy, like, I was looking at it one time at practice, and I just was like randomly kind of getting dozed off. Like, that thing is huge. Like, it’s carrying real power. So I don’t know if they can crank it more. crank it less, but I think it’s serious. I don’t know.”
Kostos asked whether other players agree that it’s a thing.
“Everybody’s different,” Bourne said. “Everybody’s different. Some people don’t care. Some people talk about it. Some people talk about it more than others, but I’m just one of those trolls that like, ‘Man, nah, bro, something ain’t right.’”
Again, the whole topic feels like social media-driven bullshit, with all due respect. The 49ers have practiced there since 1988. Football is inherently physical and demanding. Injuries happen for a bunch of different reasons.
This isn’t a rash of broken kneecaps in the break room at Dunder Mifflin. Football players get injured while practicing and playing football. The challenge for the 49ers is to treat this as not simply a medical issue but as a P.R. issue to and say, loudly and clearly, that it’s not an issue — and that anyone who suggests otherwise is cuckoo for power-plant Cocoa Puffs.
It may be too late for that. The only complete fix at this point may be to move to a new practice facility.
