CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Coach Mike Pettine acknowledged after Sunday's 37-3 loss to the Bengals that Jimmy Haslam hasn't given him any assurances yet that he'll make it through the season.

"We haven't had those discussions,'' Pettine said. "Jimmy and I had good conversations. We talk every week. Frankly, there's a lot of football left to be played. We're evaluated every day, whether we're evaluating ourselves or whether it is coming from him.

"We're just going to fall back on what we know how to do. We're going to come in every day, prepare relentlessly like we do, we're going to coach our players hard and we will see what happens."

After the 31-10 loss to the Bengals on Nov. 5, Haslam met with Pettine one-on-one and challenged him and staff to do "some soul-searching'' and find answers for snapping what was then a four-game losing streak.

Instead, they've lost three more since then to extend the skid to seven games.

The Browns are 2-10 and own the worst record in the division. If the draft were today, they'd have the No. 1 overall pick.

Pettine has lost 15 of his last 17 games, and the Browns have gone 3-16 since grabbing sole possession of first place in the AFC North with a 24-3 victory over the Bengals on Nov. 6 of last season.

What's more, Sunday's loss -- the worst in series history -- marked their fourth straight defeat by an AFC North foe to fall to 1-4 in the division. In three of those losses -- not counting the Ravens game started by Josh McCown -- the Browns lost by a combined score of 98-22.

"That's tough,'' said Pettine. "It's frustrating. We talked about it throughout the week, we talked about it at the team meeting last night - you find out who you are. You find out who you are. It's a healthy dose of adversity and guys respond to it in different ways. You find out real quick.''

Haslam hasn't been heard from much since he said on Aug. 1 that he wasn't going to "blow things up'' after the season. But that's when the Browns were coming off a promising 7-9 season and the outlook seemed bright. The Browns thought they were going to have an elite defense, one that could keep pace with the others in the division. Instead, the unit was 30th heading into Sunday's game, and surrendered 377 yards to the Bengals.

That's when Haslam still had hope that Johnny Manziel might take over as the starting sometime during the season and work his Johnny Football magic. Instead, he's in the doghouse for lying to coaches and the Browns still don't know if he can play.

That was back when Haslam thought Justin Gilbert might live up to his 2014 No. 8 overall status and when he excited about first-round picks Danny Shelton and Cam Erving.

Instead, the Browns are getting very little production -- or none at all -- from their first round picks dating back to 2011, except for Shelton, who's had a solid rookie year.

Pettine stressed that the Bengals are 10-2 because they've stuck with the program and built it from the ground up under Marvin Lewis, who's in his 13th season as the Bengals head coach.

"They're a team that's playing well,'' he said. "They've been in their system a long time. They have continuity. They have chemistry. That's what you strive for. You could see a lot of their guys - that team has been together for a long time, and it's paying dividends for them."

Haslam, who's already fired Pat Shurmur and Rob Chudzinski since he took over in 2012, isn't expected to make any decisions in the heat of the moment. He'll likely let Pettine get through the season and then re-evaluate the program from top to bottom when it's all over.

Whether or not he rides it out through the rough times with Pettine remains to be seen.