Chang W. Lee/The New York Times  EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — There was pressure, so much pressure at MetLife Stadium. The Seattle Seahawks embraced it, inflicted it, reveled in it. They spoke all week of their respect for Peyton Manning and the Denver Broncos’ high-powered offense, but, they said, wait until Sunday. Just wait.  To the Seahawks, Manning, however decorated, was just another quarterback to smother and suffocate, to force into bad decisions and worse throws and turnovers that would tilt the game in their favor. This was how the Seahawks had won all season, and this was how they won Super Bowl XLVIII. This was how they became champions.  The final score was Seahawks 43, Broncos 8, and yet somehow the margin of victory — the largest in a Super Bowl in 21 years — did not fully reflect the scope of Seattle’s domination. It was as if the Seahawks chose to unleash 38 years of frustration in 60 hellacious minutes, scoring the first 36 points en route to winning the first championship in franchise history.  In the first outdoor cold-weather Super Bowl, the demolition began in 49-degree temperatures, on a night devoid of snow and chill, conditions ideal for a coronation. It began with a safety on the Broncos’ first offensive play, which, as omens go, was akin to a black cat opening an umbrella beneath a ladder in Denver’s locker room.  Seattle led by 8 points after the first quarter, 22 at halftime and 28 after three quarters — and only 28 because on the final play of the period, Denver scored its first points. Yes, it took the Broncos, the highest-scoring team in N.F.L. history, 45 minutes to breach the end zone.  “We loved hearing about the Broncos’ offense because we felt that, after the game, you’d be hearing a lot about the Seahawks’ defense,” linebacker Bobby Wagner said.  Every turnover forced (four), every touchdown scored (four), sent ripples of delirium across the Seahawks’ sideline, which started sensing victory as early as the opening kickoff but did not act upon its impulses until less than two minutes remained. That was when Zach Miller dumped Gatorade on his coach, Pete Carroll, and the owner, Paul Allen, started cradling the Vince Lombardi Trophy by the 25-yard line.  Many among the announced crowd of 82,529 — those clad in orange, at least — had departed by then, having apparently decided it would be more enjoyable to stew in traffic, or in train-related congestion, than to watch the rest of what was either the most dominant game by a team in recent Super Bowl history or the most disappointing.  The carnage was disorienting and familiar all at once. These were the Broncos, after all. There were also the Seahawks, who feature perhaps the nastiest defense since the 2000 Baltimore Ravens, who pursued the football as if it were a treasure.  Manning had yet to encounter a team as fast and physical and vicious as Seattle, and both of his interceptions led to touchdowns. One, a 69-yard return by Malcolm Smith, who was selected as the game’s most valuable player, was one of the longest in Super Bowl history, along with the 74-yarder by Tracy Porter of New Orleans four years ago. That also came against Manning, whose place in football history — mere greatness, or the greatest? — emerged as a flash point in the two weeks leading to Sunday.  Each touchdown pass he threw in his record-setting season nudged him closer to immortality, to a realm where his legacy would be defined, if not determined, by his performance Sunday, when he vied to become the first quarterback to lead different teams to a championship. Playing on his brother Eli’s home field, Manning completed 34 of 49 passes for 280 yards but, like so many quarterbacks before him, lost his sheen against Seattle.  “To finish this way is very disappointing,” Manning said.  It was the Seahawks who last week deflected questions about Manning’s legacy into discussing their own, how they wanted to be known as one of the best defenses of the era, if not ever. No team allowed fewer points, or fewer yards, or was stingier in the red zone than the Seahawks, who held Denver to nearly 30 points below its average.  “We ran into a buzz saw,” Denver Coach John Fox said.  The Seahawks thrived despite 39 rushing yards from Marshawn Lynch, their bruising running back. But really, they did not need him. Not with the versatile Percy Harvin, who had played in two of the Seahawks’ previous 18 games and was held out of the N.F.C. championship game with a concussion, carving up the Broncos’ defense with jet sweeps and an 87-yard kickoff return for a touchdown to open the second half. Or with Russell Wilson, joining the likes of Ben Roethlisberger and Tom Brady to win Super Bowls in their second season, firing two second-half touchdown passes to receivers who went undrafted — to Jermaine Kearse, who spun away from two tacklers and bounced off two more, and to Doug Baldwin.  On the sideline, Carroll pumped his fist and slapped hands and delighted in this, the culmination of a four-year ascent that began when he took over in January 2010. The rare coach who has won a national championship in college and a Super Bowl title, Carroll transformed the Seahawks into a perennial contender through his sheer force of personality, through practice days called Competition Wednesday and Turnover Thursday and No Repeat Friday that so often this season resulted in sensational Sundays.  “The things that were supposed to happen, happened,” Carroll said.  None of his Seahawks had played in a Super Bowl before — the first team since the 1990 Bills to own that distinction — but it was the Broncos who seemed flustered by the moment, starting with the first snap. It sailed over Manning’s head and into the end zone for a safety, the fastest score — at the 12-second mark — in Super Bowl history.  Center Manny Ramirez said after the game that he thought he heard Manning issue a snap count and let the ball fly. Manning described it as a “cadence issue,” caused by crowd noise.  Seattle added one field goal, then another, and by the end of the first quarter had outgained the Broncos, 148-11. Before Denver could notch a first down, it trailed by 15-0, after a 1-yard score by Lynch.  Wave after wave of pass rushers harassed Manning, moving him off his mark. It was Cliff Avril whose pressure helped to force Manning’s first interception, and it was Avril again who stunted the Broncos’ first long drive of the half. He thundered in and thumped Manning’s arm as he threw, the fluttering ball nestling in the hands of Smith, who extended Seattle’s lead to 22-0 with 3 minutes 21 seconds left before halftime.  That touchdown eliminated any lingering suspense to what was a rare crossover Super Bowl, a matchup that appealed as much to the casual fan as to the football freak. In some circles, the game had been distilled into rather crude (and imprecise terms), as villains versus the virtuous — those scoundrels from Seattle, with their brazen secondary and a raft of drug-related suspensions, and the likable folk from Denver, with a perfect pitchman at quarterback and a coach, Fox, who roared back from midseason open-heart surgery.  And then the game started, such as it was, not that the Seahawks complained. Their fans chanted and danced and lost their voices in the stands here, much as they did back in Seattle, where they are known as the 12th Man. No doubt they noticed that the Seahawks scored 12 seconds into each half.  This is a new age of Seahawks football, one that is poised to continue for years to come. With a dynamic quarterback, a diversified offense and a defense that reduced one of the best ever to mediocrity, the Seahawks are positioned for sustained success — eventually. But first, they will enjoy this, the championship, their dominance, and wait, just wait, they said, until the parade on Wednesday.  A version of this article appears in print on February 3, 2014, on page D1 of the New York edition with the headline: Forget Forecast: Seahawks Pour It on. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe
Seattle’s fast, physical defense smothered Peyton Manning and the Broncos at MetLife Stadium as the Seahawks romped to their first Super Bowl title.