MINNEAPOLIS -- Since the first time he instructed Xavier Rhodes to shadow Calvin Johnson in December 2014, Mike Zimmer has been setting the cornerback up as the Minnesota Vikings' big-game hunter. And the pelts on Rhodes' wall have been getting more numerous and more prominent by the week.
Last Sunday, in his first action of the season, Rhodes led a group effort to deny Kelvin Benjamin a catch in the Vikings' win against the Carolina Panthers. The assignment he drew Monday night was perhaps his biggest since his first duel with Johnson: following Odell Beckham Jr.