As the Jets' scout QB last season Tyrod Taylor was usually out there on the practice fields at 1 Jets Drive facing the starting defense run by DC Jeff Ulbrich. This season Ulbrich has returned to in Atlanta as the Falcons' overseer of the defense as he prepares for his return to MetLife Stadium on Sunday.

"There's some similar principles, but it's definitely a different outfit," Taylor said on Wednesday. "Coach Brick has those guys flying to the football, as his defenses have always done, looking forward to the matchup, the challenge that they pose for us this weekend."

Taylor, 36, will be making the 61st start of his 15-year NFL career, now with his seventh team, and his second straight for the Green & White (2-9). The Falcons (4-7) are in the middle of the pack in most defensive statistical categories, but they No. 8 in passing yards allowed per game at 190.4. Atlanta is No. 3 in the league with 39 sacks, the same number the Jets have allowed.

"It's always a chess match when you're going against the defensive coordinator," Taylor said. "Obviously, you want to be a step ahead of them, and they want to try to pressure the quarterback as you go throughout the game. My mindset is just executing our game plan and doing it to the best of my ability each and every play consistently, and putting the guys in the right position to go out and score points and take advantage of sustaining drives."

Against Baltimore last week, when he replaced Justin Fields as the starter, Taylor completed 17-of-28 passes for 222 yards with a TD (to John Metchie III, his second scoring grab in as many weeks) and 1 INT for an 82.7 passer rating.

Jets OC Tanner Engstrand, at 43 only a few years older than his starting quarterback, said that his approach with the veteran differs from how he interacted with Fields during games.

"It's a different operation with Tyrod in there because he uses a wristband when he's in the game, as opposed to previously, when Justin was playing," Engstrand said. "It would be more of a dictation, where I called a play like it's sort of not a traditional sense, but it's just different. So then when you're given the wristband, and he's now calling it off of the wristband in there, I don't have to say as much on the headset. He did a really good job of getting the guys in and out of the huddle quickly to the line of scrimmage so that we have plenty of time to make any adjustments that we needed to make.

"It's just having a guy with that type of experience around. He's seen so much football because he's been around it, whether he's been in the game or or been a No. 2, he's been in this league for a long, long time. So there's a lot of things that he's seen, where I can say something to him, and then he'll know it and he gives good feedback to me as well, maybe certain things that he likes or he's been comfortable with, but it's been really good."

Probably the biggest oddity of the Jets-Falcons matchup is that both of Sunday's starting quarterbacks -- Taylor and Kirk Cousins, 37 -- were viewed as grizzled backups for most of the season. Cousins is now the starter for Atlanta because second-year man Michael Penix Jr. is out for the season with a knee injury.

"He has a lot of football savvy," Taylor said of Cousins. "He's been around the game a long time."

As have they both.