Six in a row?  

As much as the National Football League has morphed into a pass-heavy league in the last two decades, a successful ground game nonetheless still stirs the drink that leads to victories.

Nothing better emboldens that notion than what the Browns have done to the Cincinnati Bengals the last five games under the leadership of head coach Kevin Stefanski and his run-heavy offense. He has never lost to the Bengals.

Game six of the Stefanski-Bengals series arrives Sunday in Cincinnati with the Browns, in the midst of a  robust (for them) two-game winning streak, looking to sweep the season series for the third consecutive season.

The main reason for his success? Simple. The Browns play bully ball with their division rivals. The Bengals,, for whatever reasons, are bereft of answers as they strive to find solutions to neuter the Cleveland ground game. 

Stop Nick Chubb and Co. and your odds of winning significantly rise. Easy to reason; much more difficult to accomplish.

The Bengals rely heavily on the passing arm of Joe Burrow and a wealth of solid receivers -- he got favorite receiver Ja'Marr Chase back last week -- in an effort to counter, unsuccessfully as it has turned out, which makes Sunday's game that much more interesting. One of these days, that will change.

The last time these two teams met on Halloween eve in week eight, the Bengals came to Cleveland having won four of their previous five games and that loss was a two-pointer to Baltimore. Surely this would be the time to end this nonsense of losing to an inferior team.

The Cleveland offense was led by itinerant quarterback Jacoby Brissett, whose achievements reached the mediocrity stage the last several years. The Browns had lost four in a row and six of their previous seven games. The defense was clueless. What could go wrong?

The Stefanski baffling stranglehold on the long-time series. That's what.

The Browns bolted out to an 11-0 halftime lead on the first of two Nick Chubb touchdowns and a 55-yard field goal from rookie Cade York and built it to 25-0 after three quarters on a Brissett three-yard run and scoring pass to Amari Cooper before touchdowns passes to Tyler Boyd and Tee Higgins made the 32-13 final slightly less embarrassing. 

While the Cleveland defense played arguably their best game of the season that included a couple of takeaways, the offense exploded for 440 yards, three yards shy of their season best.

Stefanski's winning formula on offense was the same in all five victories. Run the football. Then run it some more. It resulted in 828 yards infantry style (166 yards per), and nine touchdowns. The Bengals, meanwhile, pounded out just 349 yards on the ground (70 a game) with only three scores. 

Chubb feasts on the Bengals' defense. He has run for 763 yards and eight touchdowns (seven on the ground) in eight games, averaging 95 yards a game with five games with 100 or more yards. In six games against Cincinnati, five with Cleveland, Kareem Hunt has seven TDs, four with the Browns.

Any reason to disbelieve Stefanski's game plan Sunday, especially with Deshaun Watson gingerly working his way back to becoming one of the NFL's top quarterbacks, will lean heavily toward advancing the football in a grinding, time-consuming manner, keeping the Bengals' offense on the bench? Of course not.

The key is whether the Bengals' defense, which has improved dramatically against the run during their four-game winning streak, can neutralize Chubb, Hunt and the Cleveland offensive line. They have allowed only 92 yards a game since Halloween.

If Stefanski slants his game plan toward Watson, especially in the passing game, he is making a mistake that likely will finally lead the 5-7 Browns to elimination from playoff contention, as if they aren't really there now. As of now, Cooper is iffy with a hip injury. If he can't go, look for Stefanski to dial up a bloated number of running plays with receivers polishing their blocking skills.

The Cleveland defense, which allowed just 178 yards on the ground in victories over Tampa Bay and Houston, will see Joe Mixon for the second time this season. The former Cleveland nemesis has been rather silent the last three games of the series with just 137 yards, a mere 27 in the earlier loss.

During Mixon's recent two-game absence in concussion protocol, Samaje Perine filled in nicely with 164 yards, including 106 last Sunday in a big victory over the Kansas City Chiefs, providing a double challenge for the up and-down Cleveland run defense.

When taking everything into consideration, the odds are Stefanski's mastery of the Bengals will end eventually. It says here that eventuality will be Sunday, where the Bengals will end a two-game skid against Cleveland at home and break through the Stefanski curse and bring down the curtain on the playoffs for this season.

Burrow will flourish, strafing the Cleveland secondary for three touchdowns and scoring one himself. Watson will look worse this week than last week against a better defense. Browns optimists envision a Bengals letdown after the Kansas City upset. Not gonna happen. And it won't be close. Make it:

Bengals 38, Browns 17