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.

Strategies that favor parity in recruiting promising players mean that, practically, any one team can lose on any given Sunday. (Or Saturday in this last case.) This parity further increases the suspense and anticipation that fans experience, making it hard to turn away from televised contests. That is the one sure-fire victory in the business of professional football.

The head coach is at the front of the business end on the field and in team meetings. And so the conventional owner/management response after a disappointing defeat is to fire the field general. And this is what happened the first business day after the Buffalo Bills lost the divisional contest to the Denver Broncos 33-30.

This coach, well-loved locally and respected nationally, was easy to like. His team a perennial contender, he had racked up twice as many wins as losses in his time with the team. On the personal side, he seemed like he was from the old........

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