Patriots keep rolling with 56-10 victory

ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. -- Talk about a flex game.

The undefeated New England Patriots flexed all right, tensing their muscles Sunday night and squeezing the wind out of the upstart Buffalo Bills, 56-10. The performance not only quieted the chattering crowd at Ralph Wilson Stadium but probably sent a chill through the rest of the NFL.

The pecking order is clear. It’s the Patriots . . . and everybody else.

“Obviously they’re the No. 1 team in our world,” said Buffalo defensive end Chris Kelsay, whose team yielded 510 yards and touchdowns on each of New England’s first seven possessions. “Until somebody can prove them differently, you can’t really say they can get beat.”

NBC moved the game from the afternoon to night -- the network’s prerogative as part of so-called flex scheduling -- and had hoped for a more competitive game. But the Patriots (10-0) put things out of reach early, scoring two touchdowns in the first quarter and three in the second on their way to a club-record-tying 56 points.

The Patriots scribbled more than one new record in their book. Tom Brady zoomed past Steve Grogan as the Patriots’ leader in career touchdown passes, throwing his fifth of the game midway through the third quarter. And receiver Randy Moss caught a career-high four scoring passes, all in the first half, covering 43, 16, six and 17 yards. That was a single-game record for a team that had nary a hiccup coming off a week’s rest.

The key, Moss said, is Coach Bill Belichick “tore our heads off” with intense practice sessions throughout the week leading up to the game.

“It was just an emotional week,” Moss said. “He put so much emphasis on making sure we were ready to play and not being satisfied with being 9-0 coming off the bye week. He put us through it this week, and I really have to commend him for that.

“Not many head coaches would bite down hard and put their team through the work that he put us through, and it surely paid off.”

With his four touchdowns, Moss matched the total of Dallas receiver Terrell Owens, who caught a quartet against Washington earlier in the day. Moss said he was aware of what Owens had done, although he didn’t seem too caught up in keeping pace with him.

Brady, who completed 31 of 39 passes for 371 yards, said Moss wasn’t the primary receiver on all of his touchdowns.

“I just tried to throw to the open guy, and if he’s the open guy, he gets it,” Brady said. “I thought we spread the ball around pretty well tonight. The defense has to account for everyone on our team.”

Buffalo (5-5) was looking to notch a fifth consecutive victory for the first time since 2004. But New England made the Bills’ first-stringers look like scrubs, moving downfield with amazing ease to build leads of 14-0, 21-7 and 35-7 before the Bills trudged into the locker room at halftime.

It’s not as if Buffalo was doomed from the start, even though it was without star rookie running back Marshawn Lynch, recovering from a severely sprained ankle. This was a team that nearly shocked the Cowboys on “Monday Night Football” earlier this season.

Buffalo was limited to two highlights: a 47-yard touchdown pass from J.P. Losman to Roscoe Parrish in the first quarter, and a 52-yard field goal by Rian Lindell in the third. That kick caromed off the goal-post camera, leading some to suggest Lindell was trying to wipe out any video evidence of the game.

Really, the Bills are just the latest in the string of teams blown out by the Patriots. New England goosed the score a bit higher than it needed to be, and Buffalo fans chanted an obscene word to describe Belichick after he decided to go for it on fourth down with his team up 35-7 and 42-10. But the Patriots eventually called off the dogs, and backup Matt Cassel replaced Brady with about 11 minutes left.

“They just showed why everybody else in the league is looking up to them,” Bills defensive tackle Kyle Williams said. “You make a mistake, they capitalize. You don’t make a mistake, they capitalize.”

For the Patriots, that’s win-win. And then some.

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sam.farmer@latimes.com