Fumble recovery does tend to be random, but that’s not until after the fumble.There are practice techniques and skills used in fumble recovery like touching a ball in the air so it drops straight down and falling on it, pulling it in to the gut while being balled up so it can't be pulled away etc... So your points can be made for both events.
But back to your original error... as noted it is obvious that fumbles and fumbles lost are not a normal distribution curve and there are skills and practices involved. Otherwise we would be waiting at play count 55 and say OK here comes the fumble.
So to make that observation is really quite pointless to the data being presented. Data, which by the way has skill, practice, etc, inherent in the charts being presented in the whole and is looked at from several ways. You can't separate skill, practice, etc from the data because they helped create the data and in the case of the Pats this includes deflated balls (least we forget). Presenting it in a proper way as a chart is how one can analyze such numbers.
Those things you are transfixed on are actually noted in the second to last paragraph, that judging from the knee-jerk rejection in your post ("Fell apart right near the beginning") could not be bothered reading before wasting my time.
I'd seriously appreciate it if you read the whole thing next time, it's Saturday and I have a family tugging at my elbow... instead I am correcting your errors which you couldn't be bothered with yourself. Thanks.
Fumble recovery tends to be random because once a fumble starts the ball bounces largely at random. Willie Parker had a streak of fumbles that all quickly bounced out of bounds thus keeping possession, that was followed by another streak where he wasn’t so lucky. Yes there’s some skill when the ball bounces to you to help you get possession, but whether or not the ball is going to bounce to you is random. Thus fumble recovery does TEND to be random, just as I said.
Making the observation proves that the data presented is pointless. It’s all based on a false assumption.
There’s no reason to read the whole thing when the excerpts you posted show the rest is quite simply wrong.
Out here in reality a team can DRASTICALLY reduce their fumble rate without any cheating. Just look at the Giants before Tom Coughlin and with him, especially Tiki Barber. Thus anybody thinking that the Pats fumble rate is proof of cheating is, quite frankly, a moron, and their story is not worth reading.