It was an odd process for the Patriots, they handed the job to Mayo without interviewing anyone else last year, and had easily the worst roster in football so the expectations should have been low. He may have lost the locker room based on some interviews I saw with Patriots players, but perhaps there is a coaching candidate out there they really want now - Vrabel seems to be the name the media thinks. But if they bothered to do an actual search last year, Vrabel could have been part of that process.
Ironic that all these years of watching Belichick protégés go out and flop elsewhere, the first thing they do after firing Bill is immediately bringing in one of his disciples? They should have at least interviewed Brian Flores, the most successful of his disciples.