EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — All-Pro cornerback Richard Sherman left Sunday’s game with a high ankle sprain in the fourth quarter and did not return.

Sherman said X-rays of his ankle were negative. He was on crutches after the game.

Sherman said he originally hurt the ankle in the third quarter. He was able to jog off the field, but later in the game, when he was hit while making a play, he needed to be helped off the field and was taken to the locker room on a cart.

Sherman said the injury would not keep him from any celebrations.

Wilson makes history

Twenty six years after Washington Redskins quarterback Doug Williams was named Most Valuable Player of Super Bowl XXII in San Diego, the Seahawks’ Russell Wilson joined Williams as the only other black quarterback to win a Super Bowl.

“To be the second African-American, that’s history right there,” Wilson said. “There are so many guys before me who have tried to change the game and done a great job at it. God’s so good. It doesn’t matter what you look like. It doesn’t matter if you’re black, white, Latino, Asian. It doesn’t matter if you’re 5-feet-11. It doesn’t matter how many people tell you ‘no.’ It’s the heart that you have. That’s what I try to prove every day.”

Wilson, 25, became the third youngest QB to win a Super Bowl. Only Pittsburgh’s Ben Roethlisberger and New England’s Tom Brady were younger.

Lynch goes out quietly

After a week of hoopla about how much Marshawn Lynch did or didn’t talk, he finished the season with a quiet night.

Lynch had 15 carries for 39 yards against a Denver defense predicated on stopping him. His 15 carries were his fewest since an Oct. 8 game in St. Louis when he carried just eight times.

Lynch did not stay on the field to celebrate. He headed to the locker room, where he was eventually asked if this was the best day of his life.

“Next to being born,” he said.

MVP Smith interrupted

A man jumped onto the podium during Super Bowl MVP Malcolm Smith’s postgame news conference, grabbed the microphone and said the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks were “perpetrated by people with your own government.”

Smith, a Seattle linebacker, sat dumbfounded and surprised when the man suddenly appeared on his right side.

The man said: “Investigate 9/11. 9/11 was perpetrated by people with your own government.” He quickly walked away, and security converged on him.

It wasn’t immediately clear if the man was taken into custody.

Smith then continued taking questions from the media.