Can Broncos navigate the toughest homestretch among AFC playoff hopefuls?

The Denver Broncos can extend their latest winning streak to four games and secure the franchise’s first winning season since 2016 when they host the Indianapolis Colts on Sunday. It would be another clear step forward in Sean Payton’s second season as head coach.

Just don’t expect that particular milestone to mean much to a team with far bigger goals.

“I don’t know that one person downstairs — myself included — has thought about, right now, this team just having a winning season,” Payton said during a conference call with reporters Monday. ” … I think our aspirations are a little higher.”

The Broncos have clarity as they return from their bye week. Every team in the league has four games remaining. The Broncos are 8-5 and sit in the No. 7 seed in the AFC playoff field. The Baltimore Ravens (No. 5) and Los Angeles Chargers (No. 6) are also 8-5, but both teams currently hold the head-to-head tiebreaker edge over the Broncos. Three teams are sitting on the outside of the postseason picture — Colts (6-7), Dolphins (6-7) and Bengals (5-8) — who are trying, with little to no margin for error, to chase down the Broncos.

If Denver does make the playoffs for the first time since 2015, it will have done so while navigating easily the most difficult schedule of the six teams currently in the wild-card picture.

Each of the other five teams in the table above has at least two games remaining against opponents that enter Week 15 with three or fewer wins. The Broncos, meanwhile, have no such games left. Their worst remaining opponent by record is the five-win Bengals, who will host the Broncos later this month. Cincinnati, despite its struggles, features one of the NFL’s most dangerous offenses.

The path for the Broncos begins with two games in the next eight days. Denver hosts Indianapolis on Sunday and then visits the Chargers on “Thursday Night Football” on Dec. 19, a game executives at Amazon appear wise to have flexed into that prime time slot. Win both of those games — and have the Dolphins lose one of their next two (at Texans, vs. 49ers) — and the Broncos would have their long-awaited playoff berth wrapped up before Christmas. From there, Denver would have an opportunity to push up to the sixth or fifth seeds during the final two weeks, or even have the chance to rest starters in Week 18 against the Kansas City Chiefs (12-1), depending on how other games played out.

A win against the Colts on Sunday alone would give the Broncos an 88 percent chance to reach the postseason, according to the New York Times’ playoff simulator. Those odds, though, would drop dramatically, to 46 percent, if Denver loses to Indianapolis and second-year quarterback Anthony Richardson, who has responded to a midseason benching by playing some of the best football of his young career. The Colts are coming off a bye week that followed a dramatic, season-saving 25-24 win against the New England Patriots on Dec. 1. They will follow their matchup against the Broncos with games against the Tennessee Titans (3-10), New York Giants (2-11) and Jacksonville Jaguars (3-10). A win in Denver on Sunday could give the Colts a viable path to 10 victories.