"The first goal, as always, is to win your division.

So as the Chad Pennington-less Dolphins prepare to open AFC East play this afternoon at home against the Buffalo Bills, it's not surprising that the notion of a fresh start has taken hold within Miami's 0-3 locker room.

"It is a clean slate in the division," Dolphins linebacker Jason Taylor says. "One of our goals was always to win this division and do what they did here last year. It starts this week with Buffalo. It's a very important game for a lot of reasons."

Just four NFL teams have yet to play within their division. The Eagles, Saints and Buccaneers are the others, meaning the Dolphins are the only AFC team still looking to get started where it matters most.

So while it's true they are in a three-game hole to the resurgent New York Jets, just one of those Jets wins has come within the division. New England is 1-1 in the division and could easily be 0-2 if kickoff returner Leodis McKelvin had just chosen to take a knee in the opener for Buffalo (0-1 in division).

Dolphins coach Tony Sparano, who has given his team the mantra of "13 one-week seasons" as a way of wiping away a slow start against three returning playoff teams, endorses the clean-slate approach."