San Diego ? Drew Brees hustled out of the locker room with his right arm in a sling.

LaDainian Tomlinson said he played the last 41â2 games with a cracked rib that made it tough to breathe every time he got hit.

It was a painful ending to a lost season for the San Diego Chargers, who were roughed up Saturday in a 23-7 loss to the playoff-bound Denver Broncos.

Denver safety John Lynch, who’s from San Diego, did a lot of the damage himself, helping knock Brees out of the game because of a dislocated shoulder, then forcing Philip Rivers to fumble in the end zone, resulting in a safety.

The game, played on a rainy afternoon in front of a crowd that included thousands of Broncos fans, meant nothing in the standings.

That didn’t keep the Broncos (13-3), who already had clinched the AFC West title and a first-round bye, from playing all-out.

San Diego running back LaDainian Tomlinson stiff-arms Denver defender Sam Brandon. Tomlinson set two Chargers records Saturday in San Diego, but the Broncos earned a 23-7 victory.

“In my mind, every time you get an opportunity to play in the NFL, you owe it to yourself, to your team and to the people who pay to watch the game, to play hard,” said Lynch, whose high school coach was in the stands.

Quarterback Jake Plummer got banged around a bit, but led the Broncos to a 14-7 halftime lead before making way for Bradlee Van Pelt.

“It’s going to mean nothing if we don’t do something in the playoffs,” said Plummer, who was 8-of-14 for 91 yards.

Tatum Bell scored three touchdowns for Denver, but was held to 52 yards on 17 carries. He needed 131 yards for 1,000. He and Mike Anderson were trying to become the fourth running back tandem in NFL history to finish with 1,000 yards each.

San Diego (9-7), which won the division last year, lost three of its last four games. After ending Indianapolis’ shot at a perfect season on Dec. 18, the Chargers were knocked out of the playoff picture with a listless performance in a 20-7 loss on Christmas Eve at Kansas City.

Tomlinson did set two club records. His six-yard scoring run in the second quarter was his 20th touchdown of the season, breaking out of a tie with Chuck Muncie, who scored 19 TDs in 1981. He also eclipsed Hall of Famer Lance Alworth’s team career mark of 9,721 yards from scrimmage, pushing his total to 9,755.

Brees hurt his right shoulder late in the second quarter. He dropped back to pass in his own end zone and was blindsided by the blitzing Lynch, who hacked at his right arm. Brees fumbled and was hurt when he went for the ball and had defensive tackle Gerard Warren land on him. Denver’s Sam Brandon recovered at the one. Bell scored on the next play to give the Broncos a 14-0 lead.

Giants 30, Raiders 21

Oakland, Calif. – Tiki Barber and Plaxico Burress provided the big plays the New York Giants needed to win the NFC East and secure a home playoff game.

Burress had a key block on Barber’s career-long, 95-yard touchdown run, then had a career-best 78-yard catch and run for a touchdown, and they both made quarterback Eli Manning look good in the Giants’ victory over Oakland.

Barber ran for 203 yards and Jay Feely kicked three field goals, including a 47-yarder early in the fourth quarter, as New York (11-5) won its first division title since Raiders’ quarterback Kerry Collins led the Giants to the 2001 Super Bowl.

Collins had a solid game against his former team, which made him expendable when the Giants traded for top pick Eli Manning on draft day in 2004. He didn’t have a turnover for the first time since Oct. 2 against Dallas.

Randy Moss had seven receptions for 116 yards with TD catches of 15 and 44 yards for his first multi-touchdown game with Oakland, and he finished his first Raiders’ season with 60 catches for 1,005 yards. The Raiders’ passing game looked much better than in recent weeks. But in a sequence that summed up Oakland’s season, the Raiders couldn’t score with four chances from the one after getting first-and-goal with 3:44 left trailing by nine.