‘Locked-in’ Christian Barmore has Patriots coaching staff excited
· Yahoo Sports
Christian Barmore was one of the most disruptive interior defensive linemen in the NFL in 2025, but you wouldn’t know it looking simply at his sack totals. Despite playing in a more attacking New England Patriots defense and appearing in all 21 of their games, he finished with only three quarterback takedowns on the year.
Sacks are obviously far from the only measure of defensive success, but his uneven finishing skills — his three sacks came out of a career-best 58 quarterback pressures — prevented him from having an even bigger impact on an already stellar Patriots defense. Naturally, heading into 2026 and his second season in the new system, the goal for Barmore is to get better in this particular area of his game.
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It is something the team wants to see, and he himself is seemingly eager to do as well.
“A very disruptive player, a player that cares a lot,” said head coach Mike Vrabel about the 26-year-old.
“I just want to see him finish. So does he, but some of those plays that he had in the backfield around the quarterback, instead of being disruptive, being able to finish those, because he did that a lot. I try to talk to him about not being frustrated, that those plays impact the game. It may not show up on a statistical category. But I think his attitude has been great. I enjoy working with him, I do. I’m looking for more, and more of the same next year.”
Ever since joining the Patriots as a second-round draft pick in 2021, “disruption” has been the one word to best describe Barmore’s career.
On the field, he has been a cornerstone of the team’s defensive line from very much the get-go and eventually earned himself a four-year, $84 million contract extension in 2024. However, he also joined the club during a tumultuous period that saw the end of the Bill Belichick era, Jerod Mayo’s unsuccessful one-year stint as head coach, and finally Vrabel’s arrival in 2025.
Furthermore, Barmore’s own career was disrupted by a blood clots diagnosis just three months after his multi-year extension. His medical situation cost him virtually all of his 2024 campaign, and to this day the Patriots are making sure to manage his workload.
In doing so, they want to ensure that Barmore continues to develop into the A-tier player he is capable of being.
“He’s done a great job from last year to this spring,” said defensive coordinator Zak Kuhr. “He’s come in this spring with a great attitude to improve and want to get better. He’s been a lot more active in the meetings. He’s just been really locked in. I believe some team success maybe ignited that, but also I think he truly wants to see how far he can go because he’s extremely talented. I’m excited to see where his potential goes to.”
Kuhr’s excitement is shared by Barmore’s position coach. Clint McMillan already saw the arrow starting to point up during the 2025 season and now believes the veteran DT to be ready to take another step forward.
“Throughout the course of the year, he had massive improvement and was a huge part of us playing good defense,” McMillan said about Barmore’s 2025. “I tell him all the time, we would not have ended up where we were if he didn’t play well. So, excited for him to get a full offseason and excited to get the second year.”
For Barmore, that second year under New England’s coaching staff is shaping up to be one of stability — a welcome change given the last few seasons. And in order to take advantage of that, he has fully entrusted himself to McMillan and company.
“Really just trusting the coaching staff and trusting everybody in our team,” he named as the secret behind his continued growth since 2025.
“To me, they are a really great coaching staff. I love Coach Vrabel, love Coach Clint, T[errell] Williams, all of them. Just the guys that helped me out, help the whole D-line out, especially with the things we need. They’re not afraid to say things that we need to work on. That’s what I love about them. They are real with us, and that’s why I respect them.”