What you're talking about is the "low-factor explanation" bias, which we could also call the "all things equal" bias. When we tell stories about our lives, we'r

What you're talking about is the "low-factor explanation" bias, which we could also call the "all things equal" bias. When we tell stories about our lives, we're really talking about causal explanations, for the simple reason that "shit happens" isn't an interesting story for most people. The theory of causality I believe most people believe is Judea Pearl's interventionist theory, which is, we say A causes B if intervening on A changes (or prevents) B. So in your football example one imagines, if the Steelers HADN'T fumbled that what have you, then they would've won. And, on the one hand, sure, that's probably true. But if nearly anything else had gone differently in the game, any other outcome could've happened. That's too abstruse; what am I really supposed to do with that? Life would quickly descend back to "shit happens" if you pulled that thread too hard; we'd never be able to say anything about anything, because everything would be too wrapped up in esoterica. So while this is a pretty serious blind spot, it's something that we do because it helps us make sense of the world, and the honest-to-god failure cases don't routinely stare people in the face (as you can see by the responses you've gotten). The more important problem with this view is the "complex systems" sciences, where "all things equal" could charitably be called a shit show. But since we're so accustomed to this style of thinking working out okay, it's somehow not obvious to (e.g.) economists, or even philosophers, that there's a problem here. Thus, for example, you get "all things equal" theories of political economy, and we all suffer for them without having a good sense for why.