By STEVE KING

The Browns limped into the locker room beaten, battered and likely beyond help for the rest of this season following their 16-10 loss to the host Baltimore Ravens on Sunday night.

Quarterback Baker Mayfield, bothered by injuries of all sorts for most of the year, gutted through yet another game, moving painfully when he could move at all and continuing to be far, far less than 100 percent.

Right tackle Jack Conklin, finally returning to  lineup in this injury-filled season of his, didn’t last long before he was sidelined again, this time likely for good for the rest of the year, with what is believed to be a torn patella tendon.

Tight end Harrison Bryant, who was one of the Browns’ main threat downfield because of the way the Ravens were jamming the line of scrimmage to stop the run and leaving themselves open with ,mismatches in pass coverage, hobbled to the sideline in the second half.

And the offense, which was to have carried the Browns this year, sputtered for a third straight week as the club slipped to a pedestrian 6-6 record to fall out of the both AFC North title race and also the conference’s playoff chase as well for all intents and purposes.

The Browns are still mathematically alive, but not much more than this, and with it their much-anticipated dream season, the one in which they were going to make their strongest challenge in years to get to their first Super Bowl and perhaps even win it as well, is up in smoke.

All this with still five games left.

Last season’s 11-5 finish, which netted them a playoff berth — as a wild card — for the first time in 18 years, and their subsequent first postseason win in 26 years, seems as if it happened eons ago.

Indeed, it wasn’t supposed to be this way — not at all — but it is.

Disappointing? No, it hurts a whole lot more than that.