As Broncos coach Sean Payton prepared for a Monday morning address to his team ahead of its final game of the regular season, he received a text message from equipment manager Chris “Flip” Valenti.

What should be done, Valenti asked, with all the T-shirts and hats that had arrived at team headquarters, the ones recognizing the AFC West title Denver had claimed after a loss by the Los Angeles Chargers on Saturday afternoon?

“I said, ‘Just put them in the (players’) lockers,” Payton responded. ” … I haven’t seen the hats or the shirts. My understanding is they’re pretty ugly.”

Payton had established winning the AFC West as a goal for the Broncos more than 11 months ago, in the aftermath of a loss to the Buffalo Bills in the first round of the playoffs. Yet, when the Broncos gathered Monday morning after the mini-bye weekend that followed their Christmas night win in Kansas City, there wasn’t any grand celebration to mark the achievement of that goal — or any celebration at all, really.

“We actually didn’t even talk about it,” Payton said of the Broncos (13-3) earning their first division title since 2015. “I don’t know if that’s something I should’ve (talked about), or omitted. … We just didn’t really talk about it. The focus was on this week’s game and the Chargers and the seeding ramifications, really trying to educate them relative to what’s going to be important here down the stretch.”

It’s not that the Broncos didn’t discuss the achievement among themselves. Linebacker Alex Singleton said he was with his family at the Denver Zoo, taking in a holiday light show on Saturday evening as the Chargers’ result went final. All of a sudden, his phone began lighting up.

“It was definitely a little different, but just as exciting,” said Singleton, who previously celebrated division championships in the locker room as a member of the Philadelphia Eagles. “It was cool just hanging out and then, in the group chat, the texts and phone calls just come through with just how excited everybody is with what it means to this team and this organization.”

The calculus from Payton when Monday’s meeting began, though, was that there was little time to waste ahead of a contest Sunday against the Chargers (11-5) that will be “very much like a playoff game.” The top prize a team can earn in the regular season remains within Denver’s grasp. Beat their AFC West rivals for the first time since 2023 and the Broncos will be the conference’s No. 1 seed in the playoffs. That would mean a first-round bye and the guarantee that any games they play in the postseason ahead of the Super Bowl would take place at Empower Field.

The No. 1 seed is not an automatic ticket to the Big Game, but it certainly enhances a team’s odds. Since the NFL changed its playoff format during the 2020 season to award first-round byes only to the top seed in each conference, five out of the 10 teams that have earned the No. 1 seed have reached the Super Bowl. Only 8.3 percent of teams slotted anywhere else in the field (five out of 60) have made it to that stage in the five seasons under the current format.