Oh snap! Broncs center takes blame for opening snafu

Manny Ramirez experienced every center’s nightmare.

The Bronocs ce n te r ’s f irst snap of the Super Bowl sailed over quarterback Peyton Manning’s head and landed in the end zo n e wh e re K n ows h o n Moreno covered it up for a Seahawks safety and a 2-0 Seattle lead.

“There’s no explanation for it,” Ramirez said.

The Broncos run their offense out of a shotgun formation often. At times they run with a verbal cadence and other times they use a silent snap count that forces Ramirez to snap the ball on a motion from Manning, like lifting his foot.

D e nve r came out in Super Bowl XLVIII using a normal vocal cadence, but was surprised by how loud the Seattle fans were at the start of the game. Ramirez said he had trouble hearing Manning. He thought he heard him call for the ball, but Manning was actually walking toward the line to tell Ramirez something when the center snapped the ball.

“It’s just hard to have something like that happen at the beginning of the game,” Ramirez said. “It was just like real loud. We we re planning on going into the game with a cadence. None of us heard the snap count. I thought I did and I snapped it. I g uess Peyton was actually trying to walk up to me at the time. I’m not 100 percent sure. It’s unfortunate. Things didn’t go as planned. I feel bad for the team. There’s a lot of players on the team we wanted to win that game for. You have to give credit where credit is due. The defense played amazing. They were No. 1 for a reason and they showed it today.”

Ramirez said it was the f irst bad snap exchange he and Manning had this season. The 30-year-old seemed a little shellshocked after the game. Of all the times to have a bad snap, he picked maybe the worst.

The Broncos never recovered from the play.

“You never wish for anything like that to happen, but it did,” Ramirez said. “It kind of put us in a bad way right off the bat, but it’s something we have to continue to push forward. In games you have ups and downs. Unfortunately we weren’t able to recover at all.”

Broncos coach John Fox gave credit to the Seahawks but also lamented his own team’s mistakes.

“You snap the ball over the quarterback’s head, t h a t ’s re a l ly m o re our doing,” Fox said. “No question they’re an outstanding football team and we didn’t play well enough.”

brian.costello@nypost.com