OSAKA, Japan (AP) - On fourth-and-1 in his first NFL exhibition game, Steve Spurrier went long. And the play panned out.

Danny Wuerffel hit Derrius Thompson for a 31-yard touchdown pass over the middle, and the Fun 'N Gun was in full stride.

When the game over, Spurrier had shown that what worked in Florida also works in Japan: The Washington Redskins had a Gator-like 38-7 victory over the San Francisco 49ers in the preseason-opening American Bowl.

Even though the exhibition game was overwhelmingly backups vs. backups, flashes of the timing and audaciousness of Spurrier's pass-happy offense were evident.

After two weeks of training camp - including several early practices in which the offense looked amazingly inept - the game at the Osaka Dome on Sunday (Saturday night EDT) was, if nothing else, a morale boost for a team trying to master a new system.

"We passed the first test," tackle Jon Jansen said. "We've got a lot of things to work on, but when you put up 38 points, something's working well."

The Redskins threw five touchdown passes, three from Wuerffel and two from starter Sage Rosenfels. More important than the score was that it was Round 1 of a three-way quarterback battle, and even Spurrier admitted the best thing about winning was that it made the 13-hour flight home a little easier.

"Winning and losing, nobody's going to give a darn five weeks from now," Spurrier said. "But tonight there's a winner and a loser, and we're going home a winner."

Actually, Spurrier will remember.

After all, he told reporters before the game that he was unbeaten as a pro coach in exhibitions, having won them all during his three years with the USFL's Tampa Bay Bandits in the 1980s.

The Redskins threw for 434 yards against the 49ers, and 12 players caught passes. Wuerffel had a string of completions to Chris Doering in the second half, a Florida-to-Florida connection that evoked more Gator flashbacks.

Wuerffel played the second half, led four scoring drives in four possessions and made two creative plays: a spin-move toss to Robert Gillespie to avoid a sack and a jump-pass to Ladell Betts.

Wuerffel also hit Darnerien McCants for touchdowns of 14 and 44 yards. He completed 16 of 25 passes for 269 yards.

Rosenfels had some early jitters, throwing two incomplete passes and an interception on Washington's first three plays from scrimmage. He settled down, however, and threw touchdown passes of 65 yards to Thompson and 10 yards to rookie Robert Royal in the second quarter against the 49ers' backup secondary.

Rosenfels, a second-year player who didn't get into a regular season game last year, finished 10-for-20 for 172 yards.

"I told myself coming over here that things may not start off real easy on the first drive," Rosenfels said. "A bad thing happened, and I had to rebound from it."

Shane Matthews, the third quarterback competing for the job, will start next week against the Carolina Panthers.

As for the 49ers, they became the footnote for Spurrier's first game. The team essentially has its 22 starters set for the season, so they played little.

"I'm not concerned about the score," 49ers coach Steve Mariucci said. "Obviously, we wanted a different score, but our purpose here was to evaluate our backups."

San Francisco does have competitions for kicker and backup quarterback. Starter Jeff Garcia played just two series and gave way to Tim Rattay, who went 9-of-13 for 80 yards.

Rookie Brandon Doman was 2-for-5 for 14 yards. Cade McNown did not play.

Rookie kicker Jeff Chandler lined up for a field goal in the first quarter, but the attempt was aborted on a bad snap. He missed a 51-yard attempt on the final play of the game.

But overall the 49ers' list of doubts entering the game was far shorter than the Redskins'.

Will Spurrier's schemes work in the NFL? If Sunday is any indication, they just might.

"We were probably more into it than the Niners," Spurrier said. "We had a little more to prove than they did. They're a team that won 12 games last year. We're trying to earn our stripes."