Well Rhodes was really good in coverage but he made very few big plays and was just an awful tackler. He's like Cromartie as a FS who doesn't make big plays.
He wasn't a great player, and still isn't... he was above average. The reason he got traded was well documented on this forum. Rex came in with Leonhard as his signal caller, Kerry got miffed because he had to play second fiddle to a short white guy, started acting like an arrogant douche, started dogging it on the field, and got benched. Kerry was not as good as he and some fans thought he was, and he got shipped out of town for not buying in. The Jets didn't have the top raked defense that year because of him, it was in spite of him. And, oh yeah, he was also a non-tackling pussy.
Rhodes started out well in coverage in his first couple of years, Vilma showed him how to study film, and then he plateaued for some reason. Probably because Belichick told him after one game that he was the best safety he had faced all year and Kerry bought the hype. After Mangini traded Vilma, Rhodes stopped getting better. Then Rex showed up and made him realize he wasn't the best safety in the league, and he didn't like that and became a petulant slacker.
True I remember when he was traded he complained about Rex saying he favored his players he brought over from Baltimore and put them in a position to make all big plays. Which was absolutely retarded when the best players were Revis with the most picks and DPOY runner up. Then you have David Harris with the most tackles who was set up on most plays by Scott taking on blockers.
Revis was DPOY cheated, just saying. To this day I dont get how Woodson beat him out, INTs are overated in that process.
Woodson had a lot of the more flashy stats. He had I think 2 sacks to Revis' 0, like 3 more picks and a couple more TDs. Revis definitely got cheated. I remember Rex saying that well Revis could have a few sacks too but it would be stupid to use him to rush the passer and take him away from doing what he is better than anyone else at.
Didn't Rhodes say "With Rex, if you're a starter, you can chill." If so, then obviously, he didn't want to put the effort into becoming a better player.