Winners:
Russell Wilson: The 5-foot-11 quarterback slipped to the middle part of the third round in the 2012 draft, but in just his second season in the league, Wilson is now a Super Bowl champion. He completed 63.1 percent of his passes in 2013 for 26 touchdowns against just nine interceptions. Not bad for somebody who was once seen as too short to make it in the NFL.
Johnny Manziel: NFL fans may have gotten a glimpse of the future Sunday night in Wilson — a small but mobile quarterback who can escape the pocket and make plays on the run. Sound familiar? The style describes Manziel to a T. The Texas A&M quarterback could go as high as No. 1 overall to the Houston Texans in May’s NFL Draft.
Las Vegas: The line for Super Bowl XLVIII opened at Seattle -1, but a huge influx of money on the Broncos swung the line to Denver being favored by 2.5 points. We all know how that turned out.
Joe Namath: Broadway Joe, who correctly guaranteed a Super Bowl victory in 1969 against the Baltimore Colts, came out for the coin toss sporting an extravagant fur coat.
He also jumped the gun on the coin toss, flipping the coin before the Seahawks had a chance to call heads or tails. Referee Terry McAulay showed quick hands, intercepting the coin before it had a chance to hit the ground. On the re-toss, Seattle correctly called tails and deferred the opening kickoff.
Losers:
The Manning family: Peyton Manning entered the Super Bowl with a chance to cement his legacy as possibly the greatest quarterback of all-time, but he had no answers for a lightning-quick Seattle defense. Manning threw two interceptions — one of which was returned for a touchdown — and lost a fumble in the Broncos’ 43-8 loss.
That wasn’t the only bad news for the Manning family during the week, as The Post exclusively reported Eli Manning and the Giants may have created fake “game-worn” football gear, with one of the alleged phony items currently sitting in the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio. The Giants said the lawsuit had no merit.
Jim Harbaugh: After seeing his team’s season come to an end in devastating fashion for the third consecutive season, the 49ers coach had to sit back and watch two of his biggest rivals win the Super Bowl: Seahawks coach Pete Carroll and cornerback Richard Sherman.
AFC: If the conference champion lost by 35 points on a neutral field, what does that say about the rest of the conference? Top to bottom, the AFC could not and did not compare.
New Jersey Transit: Super Bowl XLVIII was billed as the first mass-transit Super Bowl, but the transit system was completely overwhelmed by the incredible volume of passengers using the train to get to the game. An estimated 28,000 people rode the train from Secaucus Junction to MetLife Stadium — easily surpassing the previous record of 22,000 passengers during a U2 concert in 2009. Making matters worse, several overheated people collapsed at the station on the way to the game because of overcrowding.