[Plugin: WordPress Popular Posts] Code to return single most popular post ID rather than display it

I’m trying to create somewhat of a “Todays Trending Topic” feature at the top of my home page. It’s essentially just today’s most popular post based on hits.

I need a function to return the most popular post ID, with the ability to send “daily”, “weekly”, etc as an argument (I might change it around depending on how well it turns out.

I need just the ID returned because I need to tell the posts lower on the home page not to include this post in the display (or it might risk being displayed twice on the home page)

I’m getting closer but still having trouble – how would you guys approach this?

https://www.ads-software.com/extend/plugins/wordpress-popular-posts/