CLEVELAND — It was almost as if the clock was turned back five years.
Sunday's Browns-Patriots game from Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts, looked like 2016 all over again. Actually, it was worse.
In 2016, the Patriots finished 14-2 and won Super Bowl LI; the Browns finished 1-15 that season. Believe it or not, their meeting in 2016 was closer: The Browns lost five years ago in the meeting between Bill Belichick and Hue Jackson 33-13.
Odd, huh? The 1-15 2016 Browns led by Hue Jackson and Charlie Whitehurst played the Bill Belichick and Tom Brady-led Patriots to within 20 points.
Fast forward to 2021, and the Kevin Stefanski and Baker Mayfield-led Browns were completely dismantled by the Belichick and Mac Jones-led Patriots, losing 45-7. Embarrassing. Humiliating. Troubling.
The only key component remaining from the Browns-Patriots game five years ago was Bill Belichick. The NFL's greatest head coach ever was the central figure in yesterday's blowout. Stefanski and the Browns were Belichick-ed. It's that simple.
With the absence of Nick Chubb and Kareem Hunt, Belichick put together a game plan with the idea that Baker Mayfield was going to have put the Browns on his shoulders and throw the team to a victory. So when the Browns came out with a heavy dose of D'Ernest Johnson on the opening drive Belichick was likely surprised. Johnson carried the ball five times on that first series, gaining 58 of the Browns' 88 yards on the way to a 7-0 lead.
Then, that was it. It was like the game ended right there. Belichick made the necessary defensive adjustment to limit Johnson's impact and force Mayfield to throw the ball, and that couldn't have gone any worse.
It was a classic case of an all-time great coach playing chess -- championship level chess -- while the young coach was playing checkers. Look up out-schemed in the dictionary. It may say, "See 'Browns-Patriots 2021.'"
Nothing the Browns tried worked. Everything the Patriots tried turned to gold, and it couldn't have come at a worse time.
Just when the AFC North was the talk of the NFL as being the league's toughest division, the Bengals and Browns both have been blow out in the past seven days, while the Ravens were stunned by the now-three-win Dolphins and the Steelers tied the winless Lions. The good news is Browns. at 5-5, are just two games behind the Baltimore Ravens in the AFC North. The bad news is the Browns now have lost to the Chiefs, Patriots, Steelers and Chargers, all teams they will likely be fighting with for an AFC wild-card spot.
But talk of the playoffs right now seems ridiculous. At 5-5, the Browns will likely need to go 6-1 from here, and the way this team flip-flops between great and awful, that seems highly unlikely.
For whatever reason, after their opening drive score, the Browns looked like they wanted to be anywhere but Foxborough, doing anything but playing football. They were flat, uninterested and uninspired. How can they follow up their dismantling of the Bengals with that egg?
The playoffs should be the furthest thing from this team's mind. 2021 is fast becoming another lost season. Too much hype, too many injuries and too much drama. They'd better start thinking about finding a way to beat the 0-8-1 Detroit Lions, because if the bad Browns decide to show up again Sunday at FirstEnergy Stadium, it will feel a whole lot more like 2016 than anyone wants to imagine.