When the search committee landed at the Van Nuys airport, not far from the Rams' facility, and then drove to the Four Seasons Hotel at West Lake Village, the second-to-last thing on the Bengals' mind is that they were going to get blown away in the interviews. The last thing is that they would start thinking about giving the job to the youngest of the candidates in the 35-year-old Taylor.

But then he started flipping through his plans like a 50-year-old. The youngest just may have been the most organized.

Taylor had not been unknown to the Bengals. As the Nebraska quarterback named Big 12 Offensive Player of the Year, he was in their 2007 draft book as a 6-2, 210-pounder with a free-agent grade. When the Bengals hired Lazor as their quarterbacks coach in 2016 after he got fired as the Dolphins offensive coordinator, Taylor, Lazor's quarterbacks coach, replaced him for the last half of the season. The next year they both ended up in Cincy because Taylor became the offensive coordinator at the University of Cincinnati before he went with McVay to Los Angeles.

As McVay single-handedly shot down the age question when he took the Rams to the playoffs in his first year at 31, his staff that was blowing up scoreboards every week started showing up on the radar.

"It's a combination of both talking to people that have been around him and obviously we did a lot of research talking to him," says Tobin of why they think Taylor is ready. "His background is excellent. He's been around football his whole life. He's been an accomplished player himself. He knows what a successful locker room looks like as a coach and player. We thought that was important and he brings a confidence that you would expect out of a successful collegiate quarterback. His leadership comes through. His intellect for the game comes across. His confidence in himself. Those are important factors for a head coach."

Mike Brown, almost eight decades in the game now and evaluating a guy that could be his grandson, was suitably impressed.

"Bright as anyone we've had here," said Brown, going through the offensive honor roll. "Sam. Lindy (Infante). (Bruce) Coslet. Bruce never got the credit he deserved, but he and Sam both did it."

The team was also drawn to Taylor's desire to live and work in Cincinnati. Both he and wife Sarah, the daughter of long-time NFL coach Mike Sherman, grew up Midwestern and Sarah fell in love with the town during that year at UC and still has a lot of friends in the 275 belt.

With four children under the age of nine and her husband also the product of a football family (brother Press is the Eagles QBs coach, Dad was an Oklahoma safety), it looks like a great fit for a community that leads with football and family.

"We wanted guys who wanted us as much as we wanted them," Tobin says. "He was as interested in the team as we were in him and that's meaningful. It just felt like a natural, good, easy match when talking to Zac."

The Bengals weren't the only ones blown away by a Taylor interview. When they pulled into the Four Seasons that night, the Broncos' contingent headed by club president John Elway was already interviewing him and loving the easy rapport with a guy born in his rookie season of 1983.

Apparently Elway emerged declaring that Taylor had what it takes and was enamored with the thoroughness of a plan that went right down to the length of the walk-throughs. What possibly didn't fit is that Elway had just moved off a first-time head coach after just two years and wasn't ready to do that again so soon.

With the Cardinals also putting Taylor on their dance card, he wasn't exactly a state secret. The Bengals saw the same detail Elway glimpsed the next morning as Taylor adroitly handled the obvious as well as the arcane. He showed he had a grip on their roster when he knew the skills of third running back Mark Walton and how he saw their secondary matching up against the Rams. And the questions like:

If you run a predominantly zone scheme, how do you make it look the same in a run game vs. the pass game?

What do you do if you've got a tight end not strong enough to block on the front side?

What do you do when you lose your stud tight end? Or your No. 2 receiver?

"It gives you an insight not on what play they're going to call, but how they solve problems," says one club insider.

But maybe what appealed to the Bengals more than anything is when Taylor opened the interview talking about the big picture and not game plans. Culture. Tone. Locker room. Same high standards throughout.

McVay talked about similar stuff last week during the run-up to the Super Bowl, even handing out to his players "We Not Me" t-shirts.

"Everything is foundationally driven, like we've said over and over again, in the relationships," said McVay in one of his news conferences. "How can you find a way to authentically and genuinely create value for everybody so they know they're a part of the success we have? I think especially in the game of football to think that any one player or one coach is a part of why teams do things that just isn't right. I don't think it's accurate. I think what's great about football is it's everybody being on the same page."

The idea of communication and same-page mantra struck home with the Bengals. With Tobin running the draft room, they still plan to keep the coaches involved in the process and continue to seek their counsel in roster moves.

"I've always felt the job of the personnel guys is to work hard to make the head coach successful and that won't change," Tobin says. "We want their opinion and thoughts on the guys we may bring in. We want everyone involved with the player to be on-board and on the same page when he walks in the door. This unity gives the best chance for the guy to succeed."

Besides culture and scheme, they also talked philosophy, like free agency and strength and conditioning. As Taylor flipped through his plan, more pages fit than didn't.

"Ultimately you want a team that maximizes the players that it has and has a vision for the players that it wants," Tobin says. "You're never going to have everything you want. But are you flexible enough to maximize what you have? I think we found that in him. I don't think he's rigid in his thinking at all. I think that's an important trait for any coach."

The Bengals have been without a head coach for a record 38 days. But Taylor is a young man in a hurry.