ENGLEWOOD, Colo. -- When the Denver Broncos got back to work this week after the team’s bye, coach Gary Kubiak didn’t have the proverbial fire and brimstone waiting for the players.

No, he had something a little more basic and something his players have come to welcome over the last two seasons.

“Just facts, just stating the facts,’’ said cornerback Aqib Talib said. “This is what we’re going good, this is what we’re doing bad, this is how teams are attacking us … just facts ... Coach knows how to give it to us straight and he knows we listen, man. If you don't you can't really make it work here.’’

"Coach knows how to give it to us straight and he knows we listen, man," Aqib Talib said of Gary Kubiak. Justin Edmonds/Getty Images

Given the Broncos are 7-3 and they are squarely in the hunt for a sixth consecutive division title, the “vibe’’ around the team is a good one. Or as Talib put it this week “we’re 7-3 not 3-7, why wouldn’t the vibe be good?’’

But the Broncos have made no secret, since they gathered in July to open training camp, while they'd like to continue their streak of division titles at five and counting, what they'd really like a crack at is a second consecutive Super Bowl trip, or the third trip to the title game in the last four years.

And to accomplish that goal over the final six games of the regular season, they say they’ll have to maintain that affinity for the straight talk.

“Being able to present to your players, ‘this is what we see, this is what we have to improve upon and this is some changes that we’re going to make when you come back’,’’ Kubiak said. “That’s the way that we try to lead them when we left them for the week and before we gave them the break.’’

This week, that included things like what they’ll do to try to improve their play in the offensive line or in their run defense as a group. These tasks are in addition to each player’s to-do list that came from his respective position coach.

It was a hallmark of the 2015 Broncos, that ability to give and take criticism from each other without problems left behind, to keep the bar high, repair mistakes and move on.

“I think it’s just how we think,’’ said safety T.J. Ward. “You have to be hard on yourself, have that accountability. Then it won’t bother you when a coach or one of your teammates says something to you, because you’re already there. Like we’ve said, just those facts. We look at the tape on our own, we study so by the time we get to Wednesday or whatever, the coaches see we looked at what needs something.’’

The players say Kubiak is tough in that regard, but that he presents it in such a straight-forward, no-nonsense way that it comes with the simply expectation of effort to make things right.

It’s why many in the Broncos’ complex feel how Kubiak handled, first pulling Peyton Manning out of the lineup because of a foot injury a little over a year ago in the Kansas City Chiefs’ last visit to Denver and then putting Manning back in the lineup, was a key part of the Broncos’ title win.

Earlier this season Brock Osweiler, the guy Kubiak told he was coming out of the lineup in the regular-season finale so Manning could go back in, said he had “nothing but love and respect for Coach Kubiak.’’

Sometimes those messages are more difficult to deliver, and receive, in the wake of a championship -- former Broncos coach Mike Shanahan has said “it’s because everybody starts to think they’re the reason you won’’ -- but the Broncos have still tried to find that give-and-take they had last season.

“It’s like on defense we know our run defense, for sure, we have to get that right,’’ said cornerback Chris Harris Jr. “We’re not where we want to be there. We want to give up fewer points, we want to be the best defense on the field every time we play no matter who we play. We have six games left to get our playoff spot, have to look at everything we do, every day and be honest about what we need to do. We need to have each other’s backs and really talk about getting it done.

“But I think we have that kind of team,’’ Harris added. “We’ve got a lot of guys in here that know what it takes.’’