People who say the 2014 NFL season has been hard to predict are right…, and week 8 just served to emphasise that while the big upset such as the Redskins stunning Dallas gets all the attention, the stats back up that on average, experts are getting more games right than ever.

We have 4 experts rocking a 70%+ rate when picking games straight up. Compare that to last season when we had only one expert over 70% by week 8 - Ron Jaworski, who started incredibly well in 2013 - and you can already see a clear indication that matchups have been slightly easier to predict in 2014.

Week 9 should really sort the men from the boys, however.

For starters, we have a battle of the top 4 in our consensus power rankings from across sports media. First up, the Cowboys (4) host the Cardinals (2) in Dallas at 1pm ET on Sunday. The Broncos(1) then travel to New England(3) in the Sunday late afternoon slot. It's a perfect example of a potential NFC and AFC divisional - or even Conference - round slate, that will also likely mean we have wildly split opinions across our panel of experts.

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Arizona @ Dallas (1.05pm ETC, Sunday)

First things first: If you're a gambler, I'd take Arizona right now at +4. You likely won't get anything until Tony Romo's status is known, but there's always a chance that as the week goes on, you'll still get a small points spread that favors the Cowboys.

Really, Romo's status should dictate this one, and even if he is 'tough' enough to start, what are the chances that he is healthy enough to a) finish or b) win the game.

So with that in mind, it's interesting that there is only a slight favoring of the 6-1 Cards at this early stage (57%). I'd expect that even if Romo plays, the Cardinals will still be marginal favorites with experts, but we'll have more info on that tomorrow and over the weekend.

In fact, I'm going with the Cardinals because I think they're a better team than Dallas (even with a 100% Romo) now that Carson Palmer is healthy and the defense is making momentum-changing plays in almost every game.

If you're unsure, though, it may be best to wait until the weekend and checking in close to game time to see which experts change their picks based on Romo's back.

Denver @ New England (4:25pm ET, Sunday)

4 weeks ago, this would have been 90% in Denver's favor. The Patriots were underperforming in all phases, had square pegs in round holes offensively, and Tom Brady was in danger of beating Peyton Manning to the QB scrapheap according to half the NFL tape-watchers.

Wellllll look what has happened since. Brady has thrown 14 TD's in 4 games with 0 (zero) interceptions. Pretty good for a guy in decline. Meanwhile Manning has also thrown for 14 TD's in his last 4 games with just 2 INT's. Seriously, you could make the case that of the dozens of times these two players have faced-off, Sunday sees them both carry the most momentum into a contest since 2007, when Brady was in record-breaking mode.

The NFL has changed dramatically since that year, indeed I once made the case that Brady's 2007 season - following on from Drew Brees's 2006 New Orleans explosion - was one of the biggest sea-changes in the shift towards the mega-yardage era we now find ourselves watching. Brady and Manning have transcended that, but I see a bigger battle than simply Brady v Manning in this one...

Put simply, can the New England defense stop Ronnie Hillman? They roundly failed to stop... well, pretty much anybody so far this season. Hillman showed excellent burst last week and we all remember the big game Knowshon Moreno had in New England right? I'm not saying that we'll get those types of numbers, but the fact is that the Patriots interior run D is atrocious.

I think that'll decide it, but I'm just looking forward to what should be two of the games of the season this weekend. We'll have all of the experts and their straight up and against the spread picks over the next few days.