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ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. - Sherman's March to the Sea took a side trip Sunday to the shores of Lake Erie. The result was the same.

More scorched earth - or, more accurately, more scorched FieldTurf.

The Patriots laid waste to the Buffalo Bills, 56-10, in a manner that left no doubt of their intentions to not just beat every team they face this year, but to pulverize them beyond recognition.

It was, in fact, the most lopsided defeat ever suffered by the Bills since their founding in 1960.

Tom Brady threw five touchdown passes, four of them to Randy Moss, on the way to a 373-yard passing performance that, at times, was embarrassingly easy. "He's got a lot of great skill," Brady said of Moss, who had 10 catches for 128 yards. "He practices and he works and he sets the tone for everybody. You see the way the receivers perform, and you see the way Randy sets the tone, and if the offensive line continues to protect that way, I think it makes it hard on a defense."

Moss scored on TD passes of 43, 16, 6 and 17 yards - often all alone despite the Bills' attempts to flood the passing lanes with extra defensive backs, and often on comeback passes after a drop. The Bills simply never figured out that they had to cover Moss and hope, futile as that hope might be, that someone else wouldn't hurt them.

"I'm just in a good situation," said Moss, who became the Patriots' first 1,000-yard receiver since Troy Brown in 2001. "I think everything I tried to put myself through in the offseason of really trying to get ready and get my speed back paid off.

"I had a little setback with my hamstring, but I think I'm still in awe," Moss said. "I'm still living a dream and loving every minute of it. It's too good to be true."

And yet, the game was close at one point - 14-7, on a 47-yard pass from J.P. Losman (15-26, 173 yards, one TD, one interception) to Roscoe Parrish over a fallen Ellis Hobbs with 3:38 left in the first quarter. But the Patriots pressured Losman relentlessly, shut down what little rushing attack they could muster with rookie Marshawn Lynch out of action with a sprained action, and continued to move the ball offensively as if there were only four or five defenders on the other side of the ball.

"You can't make mistakes against these guys," Losman said. "It hurts. If it doesn't there's something wrong with you. But you've got to give it to them, they're a good ballclub. That's why everyone else is chasing them."

The Patriots didn't wait long to silence the huge Ralph Wilson Stadium throng of 71,338, which had been fired up by a taped appearance by injured tight end Kevin Everett that appeared on the stadium scoreboards before the opening kickoff.

Four plays into the Bills' opening possession, Losman was intercepted over the middle by Randall Gay, who returned the pick 21 yards added half the distance to the goal when he was speared out of bounds by Langston Walker.

Taking over on the Bills' 13, Brady threw for seven to Jabar Gaffney and then handed to Laurence Maroney, who completed the 6-yard distance practically untouched for his first TD run of the season, coming with 12:17 left in the opening quarter.

Maroney left the game later in the evening with what was announced as an injured foot, although it was probably just injured enough to give him the opportunity to sit out the rest of the game and let Kyle Eckel and Heath Evans carry the load. It didn't take long for the Patriots to go up 14-0. Taking over on their own 37 with 10:22 left, Brady had two passes dropped during the possession - one by Donté Stallworth (five catches, 56 yards), one by Moss - but the veteran signal-caller went right back to his most talented receiver after the drop, stepping up in the pocket and firing to an amazingly wide-open Moss from 43 yards out with 8:04 let.

The TD reception was Moss' 13th of the season, passing Stanley Morgan's single-season team record set in 1979 - the first of many records to fall on this evening.

The Bills showed a little life, and prospered from a little luck, to end an eight-play, 82-yard possession with the TD pass to Parrish.

Two plays before the score, Jarvis Green knocked the ball out of Losman's hands as he dropped back from his own 41. The Bills' quarterback picked the ball up at the 25 and rambled to his right, finding tight end Michael Gaines in the clear for an improbable gain of 13 yards to keep the possession alive.

The threat was quelled somewhat when Brady fired a 16-yard touchdown pass to Moss seven seconds into the second quarter to complete an eight-play, 72-yard drive. The score tied Brady with Steve Grogan for the franchise lead in touchdown passes (182), but the big play of the drive was a 31-yard toss to a sliding Gaffney two plays after Brady was called for intentional grounding at his own 16 to avoid a sack.

Brady broke Grogan's mark with another TD toss to Moss, a 6-yarder with 6:33 left in the half. The drive covered 84 yards in 10 plays and included six completions in six attempts by Brady, including a 25-yarder to Benjamin Watson and a 15-yarder to Wes Welker (seven catches, 78 yards). Brady also eluded a sack and added a 5-yard gain on the play before the throw to Moss on the left side of the end zone.

And if you don't think that star players keep an eye on what other star players do on a Sunday afternoon, Moss caught his fourth touchdown pass - matching a four-TD performance by Dallas' Terrell Owens earlier in the day - with 10 seconds left in the half, a 17-yard bullet to the right side of the end zone that came on the next play after Brady missed connections with him over the middle.

The score made it 35-7, capping a 12-play, 72-yard possession that took 2:39 to complete. Running in two-minute-drill mode, Brady completed eight of 11 passes to move the ball downfield with impunity; the only rushing play was a 1-yard carry by Evans for a first down.

It went to 42-7 on a 3-yard touchdown pass from Brady to Watson with 8:49 left in the third quarter, a fourth-and-1 play that drew a chorus of boos from the dwindling number of Bills' fans still within the stadium.

They weren't around to cheer when, with 6:02 left in the third quarter, the Bills' Rian Lindell made it 42-10 with a 52-yard field goal that bounced off the NBC camera on the crossbar - the second time that a field goal was ruled good after hitting a camera in Sunday's NFL action.

The 10-0 Patriots needed another fourth-down play to keep their next scoring drive, drawing a derisive body-part chant from the hometown fans before Eckel made it 49-10 with a 1-yard run five seconds into the fourth quarter.

Hobbs atoned for his earlier miscue when he recovered a fumbled 5-yard reception by rookie Dwayne Wright (forced by James Sanders) in mid-air and returned it 35 yards for a 56-10 lead with 13:59 left.

And the march to the sea - or to Glendale, Ariz., in February - continued unabated.

MARK FARINELLA may be reached at 508-236-0315 or via e-mail at mfarinel@thesunchronicle.com