I could see this being a possibility in Top Gun: Maverick, perhaps leaving his post for some odd years (maybe for the Navy Reserve) and returning to his roots to a new cast of characters, including Goose’s son Bradley, played by Miles Teller and an old friend, Val Kilmer’s Iceman.
The second reason the Navy imagines Maverick could be Captain is if he left active duty for a while and later returned.
Maverick already has a nostalgic element to it, so perhaps it will be for our protagonist as well.