By STEVE KING

The AFC North race has been, throughout this season, as tight as it’s ever been, and it got a lot tighter on Sunday.

Baltimore and Cincinnati both lost games they were expected to win — not by a lot of points, but they were projected to win nonetheless — and there are only two games separating the four teams from top to bottom in the division with five games to play.

The front-running Ravens (8-4) are still in first place in the division despite their 20-19 road loss at Pittsburgh. They are a game ahead of the Bengals (7-5), who got walloped at home, 41-22, by the Los Angeles Chargers. The Steelers (6-5-1) kept their season alive with their win, and the last-place Browns (6-6), who were idle with their bye weekend, now have a pulse, though still a faint one because of their disadvantage right now in a number of tie-breakers with the contending teams.

The Browns have a shot to surge back into the picture in a big way — both in the division race and in the chase for the wild-card playoff spots — but it hinges on them defeating the Ravens on Sunday at FirstEnergy Stadium. That’s a big task for the Browns, because they’ve really struggled against Baltimore over the years, and especially recently. No matter what they play or how the game goes, they just can’t find that little extra nudge down the stretch and they end up losing by a small margin. They fell 16-10 at Baltimore two weeks ago and 47-42 in a wild game at Cleveland near the end of last season.

It’s still all there for the Browns, but with games left at 8-4 Green Bay (on Christmas) and Pittsburgh, and at home against the Ravens, Bengals and Las Vegas Raiders, they have an extremely difficult road and have little room for error.