The Los Angeles Rams hired Sean McVay on Thursday following a lengthy interview that carried over into the next day, and now it sounds like maybe they hustled to avoid losing him to the San Francisco 49ers. Mike Silver made an appearance on NFL Network Thursday afternoon to discuss what went down, and based on this transcript from Chris Biderman, there is a lot to unpack.

According to Silver, McVay was “off the charts” in his interview with the 49ers. Silver said the 49ers did not have a strong feeling on him heading into the interview, but they came away impressed. However, the Rams apparently might have begun to sense the 49ers might make a move, and so they made their move first. But then, this is where it gets interesting.

“Sean McVay was so impressive in that (49ers) interview that he was told, ‘We’ve got a couple of GM candidates in Green Bay that we interviewed in Eliot Wolf and Brian Gutekunst. We are serious about them. You don’t know them, here are their phone numbers, go ahead and reach out and see what connection you can form with them because we’re considering you that seriously.’ So obviously this is someone who was being considered at a high level by both of those California teams.”

This is intriguing on a couple levels. First it suggests the 49ers attempts to slow play this process might have bit them in the butt with regard to McVay.

However, it also might tell us something interesting about the GM search. On Monday, Mike Silver reported Wolf and Gutekunst were considered the leading contenders for the GM position. The 49ers have since interviewed Brandon Beane and Louis Riddick, and have interviews with Terry McDonough, Trent Kirchner, and Scott Fitterer still to go.

But by the end of next Monday, or no later than Tuesday, I would hope there would at least be some rumblings about subsequent interviews or an outright GM hiring. Of course, now we get to speculate on whether the 49ers gave Josh McDaniels Eliot Wolf and Brian Gutekunst’s phone numbers to do some match-making.