THE FUSE

After a razor-thin last-second loss chalked up to key injuries, fumbles, and missed opportunities, and a hotly disputed call in overtime, a generous impulse prompted a tearful star quarterback to accept the blame for letting his team down. Of course, he hadn’t. Professional football is too random, too full of surprises, and too prone to shocks for any one player to shoulder culpability. Even the shape of the ball, an “oblate spheroid” in geometrical terms, guarantees either a favorable or costly bounce, increasing randomness, and making the game less predictable.