I quoted the claim you actually made. My point is that the 21 footballers Wikipedians identified as dying in 2022 is actually substantially fewer annual deaths

I quoted the claim you actually made. My point is that the 21 footballers Wikipedians identified as dying in 2022 is actually substantially fewer annual deaths than the authoritative source the same Wikipedia page cites as investigating for the period 2014-18, so provides no reason to entertain hypotheses 1 and 2. (Of course it also provides no particular reason to assume actual deaths fell and seek an explanation for that either; there's just enough evidence on that page to confirm Wikipedia "selected" name lists aren't data)