On Sunday, the New England Patriots made the decision to fire Jerod Mayo as the team's head coach after just one season, and his replacement could potentially be current Minnesota Vikings defensive coordinator Brian Flores.
The obvious choice to become the next head coach of the Patriots seems to be former Tennessee Titans head coach Mike Vrabel, as he spent the majority of his playing career in New England. There's even an early report from The Atheltic's Chad Graff and RJ Kraft that the Patriots are expected to pursue Vrabel for the job opening.
But Flores also has an extensive history with New England, and given the impressive turnaround that he's helped the Vikings make on the defensive side of the ball in the last two seasons, he should be a candidate for the vacancy at the very least.
If Brian Flores leaves Minnesota Vikings for New England Patriots, could he take Josh McCown with him?
Something that could potentially help Flores land the job with the Patriots is the fact that he's spent this season on the same coaching staff as Josh McCown.
McCown was brought in by the Vikings last year to become the team's new quarterbacks coach, and he's had a big impact on the career turnaround of Sam Darnold this season.
In addition, the Minnesota quarterbacks coach is very familiar with young New England signal-caller Drake Maye, as McCown was actually Maye's quarterbacks coach in high school before he went on to have an impressive college career at North Carolina.
McCown has already been mentioned as a possibility to replace Alex Van Pelt as the Patriots offensive coordinator for the 2025 season and that would probably become even more likely if New England hires Flores to be their new head coach.
Currently, Vrabel seems like the obvious choice to replace Mayo. But it wasn't too long ago that Jim Harbaugh seemed like the obvious choice to become the new head coach of the Vikings before the team ultimately decided to hire Kevin O'Connell for the job instead.
So, don't count Flores out for the Patriots' new opening just yet.