Each week going forward, we’re going to look at some of the commonly held misconceptions regarding the upcoming Patriots game. This week, we take a look at the five myths surrounding New England’s Sunday afternoon date with the Dolphins in Miami.

•The Patriots will run to set up the pass.

Conventional wisdom says that you need to establish the run to open things up and pass the ball. For what it’s worth, New England has done an excellent job when it comes to running the ball consistently, particularly over the last month. Stevan Ridley has evolved into one of the best young running backs in the league, and is on pace to do something that no other Patriots running back has accomplished since Corey Dillon in 2004 -- finish with 300 or more carries and average 4.0 yards per carry.

However, the Miami run defense is one of the stoutest in the league -- the Dolphins yield an average of 96.7 rushing yards pr game, seventh-best in the NFL. While the Patriots will take their chances on the ground in hopes of softening up the defense -- and likely work in more rushes in the second half if they’re up by two scores and trying to kill the clock -- the real gains for the Patriots offense will be made through the air against a Miami pass defense that has shown an inability to stop anyone.

The Dolphins have yielded six 300-yard passers this year, and give up 262 yards per game (26th in the league). They’ve also allowed 43 passes of 20-plus plays this year, fifth-most in the NFL. As for the Patriots, they’re the fourth-best passing offense in the league (292.1 yards per game), and quarterback Tom Brady has 821 passing yards and five touchdowns in his last two games against Miami. Throw the ball early and often against a Dolphins’ defense that was signing street free agents this week in hopes of provided depth at defensive back.

•This is a trap game.

The idea of a trap game involving the Dolphins disappeared long ago, thanks in large part to Tom Brady. With the exception of the 2009 Patriots (perhaps the most mentally weak team of the Bill Belichick era) New England no longer lets its guard down when it goes down to South Beach.

There have been fluky losses, to be sure, including a miserable Monday Night defeat to the Dolphins in 2004. But Brady, who once considered Miami his personal house of horrors, has dominated as of late. In his last four games in Miami, Brady is 91-for-126 (a remarkable 72 percent completion percentage) with 1,376 yards passing, 13 touchdowns and three interceptions. There is no way that this quarterback -- who is at the helm of one of the most prolific offenses in history through 11 games -- will allow the New England offense to fall into a trap.

•The heat will play a role.

In the early stages of the 21st century, the heat was in the Patriots’ heads -- several former players recalled situations where New England tried just about everything possible to try and beat the high temps of South Florida, including flying down to Florida early in hopes of getting acclimated to things and taping over air conditioners in the locker room with trash bags. That’s not the case anymore -- if New England was truly worried about the temps this time of year in Miami, they would have done more than practice outside in 30-degree conditions all week in Foxboro. As long as players stay hydrated throughout, the heat shouldn’t be a problem.

•Ryan Tannehill is a chump, and an easy mark for Belichick and the New England defense.

We detailed Belichick’s recent track record against rookie quarterbacks here, but it’s worth mentioning that the last six rookie signal-callers who have gone against Belichick for the first time have gone 4-2. (New England is 1-1 against first-year quarterbacks this year, losing to Seattle’s Russell Wilson but delivering a beatdown to Indy’s Andrew Luck.)

Physically, Tannehill is closer to Wilson than he is to Luck (Tannehill ran a 4.58 40-yard dash, which was faster than Luck’s 4.67 combine mark), which should be a cause for concern for the Patriots, who had issues with containment when it came to Wilson. It’s not like he’s going to keep plays alive with his feet, but if a play breaks down, he’s shown an ability to make things happen outside the pocket. He’s also on a bit of a roll. The Dolphins entered the fourth quarter of last week’s game against the Seahawks trailing, 14-7, but 17 fourth-quarter points (led by two 80-yard touchdown drives from Tannehill) allowed the Dolphins to finish with the win.

Ultimately, he’s raw and prone to turnovers (he has seven touchdown passes and 12 picks), but the Dolphins win when he doesn’t turn it over -- he has one interception and zero lost fumbles in the Miami’s five wins.

•We won’t know any more about the Patriots after this game.

It’s been suggested that this game won’t be a true litmus test for the Patriots, particularly because the powerful 49ers and Texans loom later in the month. Nonsense. Even though Miami’s 5-6 record isn’t at the same lofty levels as San Francisco (8-2-1) and Houston (10-1), there are some statistical comparisons that can be extracted from this game and used going forward.

1) The Dolphins, 49ers and Texans are all in the Top 7 when it comes to run defense, and if the Patriots will be able to run the ball consistently against Miami when they get the chance, they will likely approach the San Francisco (fourth in the league with an average of 91.1 rushing yards allowed) and Houston (second in the league at 87.5) games with a reasonable idea of what their running game can do against a group of elite run-stuffers.

2) Likewise, it’ll be an opportunity to go against a young mobile quarterback -- while Tannehill (he spent time at wide receiver in college) doesn’t have the wheels that Colin Kaepernick does, it will present a reasonable facsimile (in a game situation) of what the Patriots might face in a few weeks against the Niners when it comes to chasing down and containing a rookie quarterback who hasn’t been phased by much to this point in his first season.

3) And finally, it will be another opportunity for New England’s secondary to gain snaps as a group and learn more about their tendencies. The last two games, defensive backs have fallen into a pretty familiar rotation, with Aqib Talib and Alfonzo Dennard at corner and Devin McCourty and Steve Gregory at safety. (When the Patriots go to nickel and dime coverage, look for safety Pat Chung and corner Kyle Arrington to provide depth.) The increased reps together as a group will only make things better. They’ll get more snaps alongside each other against the Dolphins.