ey see a wholistic life. I have done quite a few interviews on this with male journalists and they always say, Everything youre saying applies to me, too. I think its absolutely true.

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- Minnesotas Xavier Rhodes and Jacksonvilles Jalen Ramsey were nearly college teammates at Florida State. They would have made a formidable combination.Rhodes and Ramsey have since emerged as two of the best young cornerbacks in the NFL, lock-down defenders in a league that puts a premium on slowing down high-powered passing games.Theyll be on the same field for the first time Sunday when the Jaguars (2-10), who have lost seven in a row, host the Vikings (6-6), who have dropped six of seven following a 5-0 start. Because both offenses have been mostly unwatchable this season, the defenses have been forced to carry the load.Rhodes and Ramsey certainly have done their part.As far as willingness to get physical, willingness to tackle, wanting to travel with No. 1 receivers each week, competitiveness, trying to lead by example and things like that, I see similarities between us, said Ramsey, who enrolled at FSU about six months after Rhodes left school early for the NFL draft.A fourth-year pro, Rhodes has four interceptions and 11 passes defended this season. He was at his best against Arizonas Carson Palmer three weeks ago, when he intercepted two passes and returned one 100 yards for a touchdown that turned out to be the difference.The 6-foot-2 Rhodes surely will be matched against former Pro Bowler Allen Robinson, who is looking to return to form after three consecutive disappointing outings.I think his recall is his biggest thing, said Vikings coach Mike Zimmer, who is expected to return Sunday after missing last weeks game following eye surgery. Sometimes a year ago, every day was a new day. And this year, he gets back to doing things correctly all the time.The Jaguars can say the same about the 6-foot-2 Ramsey, the fifth overall pick in the 2016 NFL draft. Although Ramsey is still looking for his first pick, hes made an impact in every game.According to Pro Football Focus, Ramsey has held receivers to 50 yards or less in eight of 12 games. Hes been tasked with shadowing five No. 1 receivers -- Baltimores Steve Smith, Indianapolis T.Y. Hilton, Chicagos Alshon Jeffery, Oaklands Amari Cooper and Houstons DeAndre Hopkins -- and only Hilton topped 75 yards.Ramsey will get another test Sunday against Stefon Diggs, who has 75 receptions for 805 yards and two touchdowns. Ramsey and Diggs (Maryland) squared off once in college, a 63-0 victory for the Seminoles in 2013.I like his game, respect his game a lot, Ramsey said. Always have, even in college when I got to play him a time or two. I think hes very dynamic, lines up in different places for them. He gets a lot of targets each game, so that tells me a lot about how the coaches feel about him and how his quarterback feels about him. Im looking forward to it, of course.Here are some other things to know about the Vikings and Jaguars:HONORING SMITH: Jacksonvilles all-time leading receiver, Jimmy Smith, will be inducted into the franchises ring of honor at halftime. Its also the teams annual alumni weekend, and more than 60 former players will be on hand for Smiths ceremony. Smith will join offensive tackle Tony Boselli (2006), former owners Wayne and Delores Weaver (2012), running back Fred Taylor (2012) and quarterback Mark Brunell (2013) in the Pride of the Jaguars. The 47-year-old Smith, whose life has been defined as much by drug addiction as football production, caught 862 passes for 12,287 yards and 67 touchdowns in 12 seasons.PLAYOFF PICTURE: The Vikings are two games behind Detroit in the NFC North and would lose a tiebreaker to the Lions, who swept the season series. Minnesotas 4-6 record in NFC games also would hurt in wild-card scenarios, and another loss would be devastating. Weve got ourselves in a pickle now, and if you want to go to the playoffs, youre going to have to win out, guard Alex Boone said. Youre going to need help from some other teams, which I hate doing because I feel like the more you count on other teams to kind of help you, the more they want to screw you.VIKINGS FAN: Jaguars coach Gus Bradley grew up in Minnesota as a huge Vikings fan. His favorite player? Running back Chuck Foreman. At that time, they were really successful, Bradley said. You rallied around them. That part of it is still there. My family is still all back there. When theyre not rooting for us, they are Vikings fans.MAVERICKS MEET: Vikings receiver Adam Thielen and Jaguars guard Chris Reed were teammates at Minnesota State in Mankato, where the Vikings hold training camp. Theyre the only two current NFL players from the NCAA Division II school. Thielen was a senior and Reed a sophomore on the Mavericks team that lost in the 2012 national semifinals.---For more NFL coverage: http://www.pro32.ap.org and http://www.twitter.com/AP-NFLCheap Yeezy Boost 350 . Self was acquired from the Buffalo Bandits in a trade for Alex Hill midway through last season, and made his debut in Rochester on March 16, 2013. Yeezy Boost 350 V2 For Sale . Having already announced that the race will start May 9 with three stages in Northern Ireland and Ireland and finish in Trieste on June 1, the rest of the route was unveiled Monday. http://www.yeezyforcheap.com/ . Varlamov made 33 saves and Ryan OReilly had a goal and scored in the shootout as the Avalanche beat the New Jersey Devils 2-1 on Thursday night. Cheap Yeezy Boost 350 v2 For Sale . Oaklands loss to Seattle clinched the ALs best record for the Red Sox with one day to spare in the regular season. "I think everybody was kind of watching," catcher David Ross said. "Demp (Ryan Dempster) came out before he went to the bullpen and was just yelling that they lost. Yeezy Boost 350 For Sale . 1 position. The Mustangs (6-0), who beat Queens 50-31 last weekend, earned 17 first-place votes and 287 points in voting by the Football Reporters of Canada. Western was last ranked first in the country in October 2011.Before they became Adidas executives, Nicole Vollebregt and Kelly Olmstead were athletes with two different backgrounds. Vollebregt was a figure skater, went to the University of Toronto and worked for an agency after school. Olmstead played both volleyball and softball and earned her bachelors degree at Willamette University in Oregon.Both knew they wanted to continue to work in sports in some capacity. Vollebregt reached out to Adidas in Germany and thought she would work there for one or two years. That was back in 1997, 19 years before she became global head of womens business. After Olmstead finished her collegiate sports career, she remembers thinking, I cant be done. An alumni exchange program led to her meeting the president of Adidas North America and eventually landing a job with the company, where she now serves as its vice president of brand activation.They met early on in their tenures. Though when they did, Olmstead was on the cubicle side of the hallway while Vollebregt sat on the glass office side. The two of them work together from Adidas offices in Portland, Oregon, to try to lead the company into a new market that takes a larger focus on women and features a relatively new subscription-based service.New vision, new athletesNicole Vollebregt: Weve been making products for women since the beginning of our company and our founder, Adi Dassler, worked with some of the great athletes like Wilma Rudolph back in the day. But I think what has been the biggest change in putting together a womens team to look across the company is focusing on the new opportunity thats emerged in sport, which is the emergence of this -- we call her the versatile female athlete. They may or may not be the best name, but essentially its that post-collegiate athlete whos every bit an athlete as they were back in college or in high school, just a different type. They do a lot more different activities, but they are really committed to what the role sport can play in their life and living a lifestyle that includes sport. Its our opportunity now to embrace those women and see this entire new emergence of a whole new generation of athletes. In the past, we may have focused more on the high school or the college or the professional athlete. Its now widening our scope on what our definition of an athlete is.Kelly Olmstead: Shes maybe accessible, maybe inspirational to me, but thats what I think when we look at the campaign that we just put out into market, celebrating these different women, a really broad range of women who are highly competitive by their own terms of I want to be healthier, whether its at rock climbing or at running or just connecting with people and inspiring them to be fitter.Were not trying to force feed these untouchable icons to her; were trying to say we recognize these women are the ones who get you out of bed every day. These are the women who you need motivation to go to SoulCycle or to get you on your run. I think it is more about celebrating them at the level that we traditionally put these untouchable icons at, putting them up there and pointing to some of these major achievements. When we talk about what a woman does to balance her career, her own personal health, help her family, stay healthy and connected, we are trying to say that is a very extraordinary achievement in todays world and look to those as the new superstars.Vollebregt: From a brand perspective, women are influenced much more by their peers and by the inspirational athletes they see at their own gym and in their daily life, so when we change the way that we behave as a brand -- its traditionally been only top, top professional athletes driving down and using their message and their stories to inspire our consumers -- and I think what Womens will do for our brand will be helping create more women who speak to women about their stories and about their goals and about their inspiration. To us, that feels like a much more real and authentic way to grow our brand, which is much more on her terms.Work-life integrationVollebregt: I get up very, very early. A lot of people I work with are in Germany, so Im usually on the phone by 6 and doing conference calls usually until 10 or 11. In that amount of time, sometimes Ive made breakfast for my daughter with the phone on mute and driven her to school and the people on the phone have no idea thats happening, but it is. The afternoon is trying to get caught up in work, answering emails and work on next iterations of strategic plans, and hopefully spennding some time to look out in the world as well and trying to leave at a reasonable time to pick up my daughter from school.dddddddddddd think theres no such thing (as work-life balance) anymore. I think you have to love what you do these days. I certainly have never left my job. Even if I leave at 5 oclock, Im never done thinking about it. I think its all sort of blurred together, which I dont mind, actually. Work-life balance has become about how you have it all in your head and compartmentalized different parts of your day. Its not something I strive to find; I think its something that you just need to figure out what you get from work and what you get from your personal life and how it all fits together. It doesnt feel like something that you balance anymore.Many identitiesVollebregt: Because our brand is so big and we have so many, we call them channels of distribution, so many places where our brand can be present. Its about really looking at the entire collection of female athletes through her whole life journey and making sure that we have the right packages of products for that consumer and then for each level of distribution. Its going into more information, but we will develop a specific product for an account like Dicks Sporting Goods thats absolutely right for that consumer. We also want to make sure we have the right product to sell at Barneys or at Bandier and the right product for Six:02, which is the new Foot Locker flagship. So its really understanding that there isnt just one type of woman and one type of activity, and using the breadth of our brand from performance to style, which we luckily have, to bring it together and make sure that were able to offer at different price-points and at different areas of distribution, really something that can be for everybody. There shouldnt be a woman who is an athlete who cant buy product from us. They should all find something they love.From Shark Tank to Avenue AOlmstead: Weve made a lot of efforts, both globally and locally, to find new ways to recognize great ideas. We have a system, I dont know if youd call it a contest, that we went through this year called the Shark Tank where anyone at any point in the organization can come up with ideas, something they thought, Hey, I dont know why were not doing this. I think we should be doing this. I think we had over 800 submissions or something like that, and it ended with this really inspirational, amazing day where the top teams were able to talk through their ideas. We had a panel of both internal and external influential leaders in the industry to test and challenge some of those ideas. I think several teams, if not all of them, walked away with significant funding to execute their ideas.One of the ideas that came out of the first contest was Avenue A, which is subscription-based shopping for women and running. I think we are being asked to think unconventionally and to partner in new ways and to break down barriers of what group do I work in and what am I responsible for to find the next great ideas that will make consumers ability to embed sport in their life that much easier. ... I know that its not intended to be only for women forever. I think its absolutely a concept that can and will be used to the male athlete as well.Women leading the chargeVollebregt: Largely, what weve spoken about in terms of the use of icons as we call them or superstar male athletes resonate more with men than with women and is something we know to be true. I think actually, depending at what age, if you look at high school or the collegiate athlete, theres a lot less of a difference between men and women than we realize, maybe a bit moreso post-college. I think thats changing as well. I think, in a lot of respects, its women who are leading the shift to the modern athlete, and I think men are following in terms of the transition thats happened in the way that people stay fit and the way that they are interested in nutrition and the way that they see a wholistic life. I have done quite a few interviews on this with male journalists and they always say, Everything youre saying applies to me, too. I think its absolutely true. I think women have largely created this new shift. I dont think theres a massive difference in the way we market to men and women. It may be that we try things first with Womens that we end up bringing to the rest of the brand. ' ' '