Thank you so much! Had no idea what that media chip was called. For others, the exact setting path is:

Lock screen and AOD -> Now bar -> Media Player

I was looking through the top level Display settings menu, and didn’t think to look under the lock screen settings. Kind of annoying that I have to disable media controls for the lock screen to disable the flashing animated media chip when the phone is unlocked. Why do they tie the two features together under one setting item?

Interesting! Got a source to learn more about that?