The box score displays a narrow view of Christian Barmore’s start to the season, with New England Patriots defensive tackle having one sack through two games.
A newly published pass-rush list tells a busier story, one that fits what happened when he finally got home against the Pittsburgh Steelers.
ESPN analyst Seth Walder’s ranking credits Barmore with 10 pass-rush wins through Week 2, tied for fifth among NFL players. He shares that total with five others, including Bradley Chubb and Aidan Hutchinson. Jeffery Simmons leads the list with 19.
Those are wins against a blocker, rather than sacks or a count of quarterback hits. ESPN’s explanation of its pass-rush metric says a rusher wins when he beats his block within 2.5 seconds.
Walder’s list counts those wins; it doesn’t rank players by the percentage of their rushes that succeed. Two games are a small look, but the figure puts a number on Barmore’s ability to disrupt a play before a tackle reaches the stat sheet.
Barmore’s Four-Man Rush Swung the Steelers Game
Pittsburgh faced second-and-21 early in the fourth quarter, trailing 13-3.
The Patriots sent four rushers and dropped the rest into coverage.
Barmore got a one-on-one matchup with guard Spencer Anderson, drove him toward Aaron Rodgers and swiped the ball loose. Elijah Ponder collected the fumble and returned it 19 yards for a touchdown, as Patriots.com detailed in its film review.
The play packed a bit more of a punch than Barmore’s first sack of the year because New England only scored 13 points on offense; the defense needed to notch seven more at a moment when Pittsburgh still had time to make the game uneasy.
A four-man rush also allowed the Patriots to keep seven defenders behind it. So, Barmore created the turnover without a blitz giving him a free path to the quarterback.
Barmore said he had drawn a holding penalty earlier against Anderson and changed his rush on the strip-sack.
“I didn’t want to miss him, so I just went for the ball,” he told reporters after the game. He credited Ponder for finishing the play.
The Next Test for New England’s Interior Rush
There’s a larger question behind the splash play.
Patriots.com’s breakdown put New England’s pressure rate on four-man rushes at 31% through two games, compared with 46.7% when it blitzed. Its four-man pressure rate improved from 23.1% in Week 1 to 34.6% against Pittsburgh. Barmore beating his man without extra help is the kind of result that can change those numbers.
He has help inside.
Barmore and Milton Williams combined for 87 quarterback pressures in 2025, according to Next Gen Stats figures cited by the Patriots before training camp. Their combined sack total was 5.5.
Coverage has contributed, too.
Christian Gonzalez held Pittsburgh receiver DK Metcalf to one catch for 9 yards on seven targets in his matchup.
Patriots coach Mike Vrabel pointed to the connection between coverage and rush after the win, that the defensive backs must hold up long enough for the pressure to arrive.
The next look to see if the marriage of coverage and pass rush works to a tee — and Barmore’s involved in it — comes Sunday against the Jacksonville Jaguars.
Patriots Defender Quietly Joins NFL Pass-Rush Leaders Following Steelers Strip-Sack