Long before they became two of the youngest head coaches in the NFL with a flair for designing fresh offensive concepts, Kliff Kingsbury of the Cardinals and Zac Taylor of the Bengals were teammates in the Canadian Football League with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers.

It was 2007 and it was their last go-around as quarterbacks trying to make it as a pro.

Kingsbury was the team’s third-string quarterback behind Kevin Glenn and Ryan Dinwiddie. Taylor was the fourth stringer.

They only spent about three months together as teammates, but they developed a relationship and have remained friends ever since.

"We were both very cold," Taylor joked Wednesday during a conference call with Arizona reporters. "… We threw practice-squad reps with ski gloves on and hooded sweatshirts over our ears and it was more about survival than trying to impress anybody with our arms at that point."

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Both men were celebrated quarterbacks in college — Kingsbury at Texas Tech and Taylor at Nebraska — but their pro careers never panned out, and after the 2007 season in Winnipeg, they both got into coaching.

Kingsbury became the offensive quality control coach at Houston and Taylor was a graduate assistant at Texas A&M.

A little more than a decade later, here they are in the NFL, ready to face each other for the first time when Kingsbury’s Cardinals travel to Cincinnati on Sunday to meet Taylor’s Bengals.

Both coaches are in search of their first NFL win.

"I believe Zac is doing a really nice job, offensively," said Kingsbury, who is 0-3-1. "I know they had a tough outing the other night (losing 27-3 to the Steelers on Monday night), but you look at what they’re trying to do, schematically, and maximize who they have and the players that they have, they’re doing some nice things."

Taylor, who is 0-4, said he never could have imagined that one day he and Kingsbury would be coaching against each other in the NFL.

"No, I can promise you we did not," he said, adding, "It was more just complaining about being in the CFL to be quite honest with you. … We didn’t really plan on that career path necessarily happening so quickly, but we stayed in touch just because we both went into coaching and kind of recruited the same kids and played the same opponents and just stayed in touch ever since."

Taylor said most of what he remembers from his time with Kingsbury in Winnipeg was having to share a two-person loveseat with three quarterbacks in the team meeting room and walking across the street every day to watch a movie with Kingsbury.

"Really, we just tried to survive the weather," Taylor said. "That and just show up the next day and hope that the other players were able to lead us to a Grey Cup championship because believe me, neither one of us contributed a thing."

Winnipeg actually advanced to the 95th annual Grey Cup that season, but the Blue Bombers fell to the Saskatchewan Roughriders, 23-19.