Projecting Patriot Christian Barmore's 2024 stats
It’s difficult to project stats for any NFL player in the NFL before the season. Offensive players
may be a tad easier, due to their always transparent statistical track records. The same goes for productive defenders, as well.
Long a favorite here, it's a distinct pleasure to project how Patriots' 2023 MVP, Christian Barmore will fare statistically this season. Barmore’s breakout 2023 established him as one of the best defensive tackles in the NFL. His trajectory is up.
In acknowledgment of that fact, the new Patriots' personnel head, Eliot Wolf, departed from a long-held, counterproductive policy of his predecessor, Bill Belichick. This offseason, he astutely signed breakout star Barmore to a massive contract extension after only his third season. Here, we’ll project just how good Barmore will be statistically in 2024.
Christian Barmore will be elite in 2024
Barmore had a monster season for a defensive tackle in 2023. His stats demonstrate how big a factor he was in the Pats' defense. The former 2021, second-round pick exploded onto the NFL scene with eight and a half sacks, 64 total tackles, 13 tackles for loss (TFLs), and 16 quarterback hits.
Barmore, who turns 25 next month, is just beginning to scratch the surface of his talents. If paired with the predicted 2024 breakout Patriots player, Keion White inside comprising a terrific duo at tackle, NFL offenses who play the Patriots will be in for a long season.
Alluding to this makes sense. Both Barmore and the precocious second-year player, White, are among the top pocket-collapsing interior linemen in the league. Regrettably, White has been used more outside than alongside Barmore. If that changes, the sky’s the limit for both.
Assuming that Barmore is fully healthy (he’s been bothered from time to time by a balky knee), the expectations here are monstrous for the defensive tackle. Assuming he's correctly deployed on the nose, his best position, the projection here is double-digit sacks in 2024.
Statistically, Barmore may already hold the all-time Patriot record of sacks in a season by a
defensive tackle with his 8.5 in 2023. The caveat here is that the NFL didn’t start tracking sacks until 1982. There were also fewer games in the seasons then, as well.
Suffice it to say, however, that other than two of the earliest Patriots stars at DT, Houston Antwine, and Jim Lee Hunt, no other defensive tackle seems to have beaten Barmore’s 8.5 of last season. Even Patriots’ Hall-of-Famer, Vince Wilfork never had more than 3.5 in a season. In fairness, they were different players in different roles (though they technically played the same position.)
Projecting Christian Barmore’s stats in 2024
Here we go, the projection for Barmore in 2024. No holds barred here. Barmore will continue his upward trajectory toward a Pro Bowl berth and possibly more. The projected stats here should take him into that rarefied company.
The projected stats are prodigious. He'll notch 12 sacks, 20 tackles for loss, and 20 QB hits, to go along with 70 overall stops. Last year’s first-team All-Pros were the other-worldly Aaron Donald
(now retired), who had 8 sacks, 16 TFLs, 23 QB hits, and 53 total stops.
His counterpart, Chris Jones of the Champion Chiefs, notched 10.5 sacks, 13 TFLs, 29 QB hits, and 50 total stops. Should Barmore attain the 12 sacks projected and increase his QB hit total by about five or six, then All-Pro status (never mind just Pro Bowl) may be within his grasp.
Those projections will hopefully be the minimum goals Christian Barmore sets for himself this season. They are eminently attainable, especially with Keion White playing alongside him. THis young defensive tackle is that good.
We’ll see if new Head Coach Jerod Mayo, and defensive Coordinator Demarcus Covington will do the right thing by playing Barmore on the nose, and White inside in a gap, allowing them to perform in their best positions. If so, there is no limit to what they can accomplish. Absolutely none.