By any standard, this was a laugher, except NFL teams never laugh at anyone for fear of the inevitable biteback. Anyway, Sunday was as easy as they come for the Dolphins, who bludgeoned the Buffalo Bills 38-10 with 250 yards rushing to the hated invaders' frail 46.

Rushing totals make good yardsticks. So do years. And it has been seven years -- some of them terribly long years -- since the Dolphins mortified anyone like this, when they dumped Detroit 49-21 in the 2002 season opener.

Of course, there's a big difference. Those '02 Dolphins were starting a three-game winning streak. These Dolphins were ending a three-game losing streak.

That '02 bunch went on to finish 9-7. This one, still an underachieving 1-3, now has to turn around and face the New York Jets here, and then, after a bye week, the New Orleans Saints here, and then the Jets and New England Patriots in their bristly lairs.

``This was some validation for us,'' said Tony Sparano, who is not an 0-3 kind of coach. ``You win in your division and everything else takes care of itself.''

Oversimplification? A little bit. But Sparano was talking core stuff. If the Dolphins handle division opponents in three of their next four games, they're ahead of the game.

It will take considerably more than Sunday's runaway to make an eventual success from such a misbegotten beginning. Beating the hapless Bills proves little. But it surely tops the depressing monotony of losing that had threatened to sink the Dolphins before they ever dipped a fin in the 2009 football water.

It also was a salubrious start for Chad Henne, who played safe ball in his first start. He threw 22 passes without a pick after ``turning out the lights at 10:30 Saturday night so I could think about what we had to do.''

AN EFFICIENT OUTING

His 115 air yards made an unspectacular total, and one for which the Dolphins would gladly settle in most games from here, because only 115 yards upstairs usually means you didn't have to throw much.

Ronnie Brown rushed for exactly as many yards as Henne passed for. Which is fine. That's the blueprint sketched out by the brain trust from Bill Parcells down through Jeff Ireland through Sparano: Don't let Henne get engulfed in the long-ball syndrome.

A 5-yard run isn't nearly as sensational as a 25-yard pass. What it is is a heck of a lot safer. We lived by the long ball so long around here we tend to forget football's most elemental premise.

Run it. Hit defenses right in the nose. Punish them. Keep possession and make the other offense desperate enough to throw interceptions. Which the Bills did -- two to Will Allen, one to Vontae Davis.

Bills coach Dick Jauron came across as candid in his postgame comments as Sparano was reserved in his.

``Really a huge, huge disappointment for us,'' Jauron said. ``Our defense did OK in the first half'' -- when Miami led 17-3 -- ``but got worn down, got worn out, and they ran the ball on us, which is what they do and they do it well.''

Righto. The Dolphins ran for 123 yards in the first half, 127 in the second. Not much difference there -- about how much more it hurts when a dog bites you four more times.

DOMINANT NUMBERS

Altogether, the Dolphins held the ball for 37:09 to Buffalo's 22:51. That's doubly tough on a team from up north unaccustomed to the sauna-like innards of Land Shark Stadium.

The Dolphins churned out45 rushing plays to the Bills' 17, averaging 5.6 yards per rush to the Bills' puny 2.7.

They also flashed an oddly lovely new name -- Cameron Wake -- on the defensive side. Wake waded into his second appearance as a Dolphin by sacking Trent Edwards not once, not twice, but three times. He was named Gladiator of the Year last season in the Canadian Football League. Defensive Gladiator of the Week will do for here and now.

This whole thing seemed a fitting cap to the weekend opened by the Miami Hurricanes' 21-20 turnback of Oklahoma on this very grass. If Sunday's show didn't have Saturday's pizazz, it certainly had a lot more comfy moments for the home rooters.

And it all went right back to that grass and the bruises the Dolphins left on it as well as on the Bills.

``We couldn't stop the Dolphins' running -- it was embarrassing,'' Bills defensive end Aaron Schobel said. ``You give up over 100 yards rushing, probably 200 yards, you're not going to win any games.''

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