Sherman, Seahawks make mark

Richard Sherman ended Seattle’s NFC title win with his postgame rant, proclaiming himself the league’s best corner. Sunday he capped a 438 Super Bowl rout of Denver that stamped his Seahawks as football’s best team.

Sherman is a huge Muhammad Ali fan, and talks as good a game as the boxing legend, epitomized by his onair rant with FOX sideline reporter Erin Andrews that went viral and made him a polarizing figure. But like Ali said, it’s not bragging if you can back it up — and Sherman did that Sunday.

“We’re going to go back to Seattle and enjoy this with our fans,” he said. “A lot of hard work, a lot of doubters out there who didn’t believe we’d get this far, or that we’d win it when we got here.

“Hey,’’ he added, pausing for dramatic effect, “don’t doubt us again.’’

Sherman, who left the game in the third quarter, returning only to leave again in the fourth with a high ankle sprain, helped a defensive performance that left little doubt after this one, equal parts a coronation for Seattle and an emasculation of Denver. The Seahawks throttled the league’s top offense and recordsetting quarterback Peyton Manning in front of 82,529 at MetLife Stadium.

Sherman had a subtle but huge impact Sunday, with Manning essentially throwing away from him. Sherman took whoever he was covering — often Eric Decker (one catch for 6 yards) — completely out of the game. The Seahawks handled Denver’s crossing patterns and picks, mainly by hammering the Broncos receivers at every opportunity.

“We zoned it off and we hit them,” Sherman said. “That was our plan. We were going to run and we were going to hit, and we were going to continue to hit them. And if they caught them we were going to deal with us after they caught it. That was our plan the whole game.

“The receivers, if we could intimidate them, that’s what the plan was.’’