This is from before this season, but as you see Rhodes has been very good in coverage.
Top-4 in most measurable categories, including an ultra-low 45-percent catch rate allowed and 4.8 yards per target allowed.
Xavier Rhodes leads Top-10 No. 1 cornerbacks
Maybe not as good this year?
The game Jones had against him would surely hurt him in analysis such as yards per coverage snap and so on. But he is very good in coverage.
The last few weeks Rhodes has come up gimpy during the game and had to leave the field briefly before returning. He has played on 91% of the Vikings defensive snaps this year though, so he hasn't been off the field for very long.
As far as the penalties there are 13 corners with more penalties than Rhodes and he is tied with 15 other corners with 5. That doesn't really seem that bad, especially when you consider one of his penalties is for taunting, which doesn't really have anything to do with coverage.
Here is an article by PFF looking at the match up between Funchess and Rhodes.
According to this Rhodes has only shadowed a receiver 7 of the 12 games this year. In terms of passer rating against Rhodes, you can see how Jones game stands out compared to the other 6 games.
Funchess has excelled on hitch routes this season, catching 11-of-14 targets for 120 yards, while Rhodes has allowed seven receptions on hitch routes, the most of any route this season. Rhodes will most likely shadow Funchess, as he has done to No. 1 wide receivers seven times this season.
This somewhat does not surprise me because Rhodes is such a good tackler, allowing a catch in front of him and then tackling the receiver before they get the first down isn't a big deal.
They think Rhodes will shadow Funchess, that seems like a reasonable guess, but possible they don't.
Trey Waynes has improved in recent games and teams are not picking on him anymore, thus some of the targets coming back Rhodes way in recent games instead of QBs just avoiding him before. The coverage of the Vikings has become good across the board, so maybe the game plan won't be for Rhodes to shadow Funchess as much as we might think?
According to the above article 5 of the Vikings games Rhodes has not shadowed the top WR. The games he hasn't shadowed are against the Rams, Saints, Bears, Ravens, Browns. Most of those make sense, in that the Bears and Browns didn't have much of a top receive to shadow, and the Ravens lost Mike Wallace to concussion early on in that game with Maclin already out as well, so they didn't have a receiver to shadow. Kind of interesting that the Vikings did not use Rhodes on Michael Thomas or against a specific Rams receiver.
