Giants vs Falcons: Gonzalez says Atlanta has a 'new found focus'

The Atlanta Falcons hope to rebound on Sunday when they face the New York Giants. Falcons tight end Tony Gonzalez believes the team's poor performance last week against the Carolina Panthers forced the team to refocus on its goals for the rest of the season:

"It's like new-found focus for us. I hate to call it a wakeup call because you shouldn't need that, especially the type of team that we think we are, but maybe it was. Whatever it is, we've got to use that as motivation to say ‘You know what? We've got something special here and a lot to prove this week,'" Gonzalez said.

One of the areas that the Falcons have struggled in lately has been third-down conversions. After not executing as well on third downs last week as he would have liked, Gonzalez thinks that focusing on that this week will net some results on Sunday:

"We're looking to improve on that this week. We tried to improve on that last week obviously, but we weren't able to get it done. We're going to need it this week against this team. It's been an emphasis for us and it'll be different this week, hopefully," he said.

Gonzalez also talked about the Giants' defense and how tough it will be playing against the same team that defeated them in the playoffs last season:

"It's going to take a special effort to go out there and get open and get some plays against these guys. I think we're up for the challenge. We got to be. We have no choice. To get to where we want to go, we're playing the World Champs, the team that bounced us out of the playoffs last year. We got to play this week and we've got to play well in order to win, so I'm looking forward to it," he said.

The Falcons play the Giants at the Georgia Dome on Sunday with kickoff scheduled for 1 p.m. The game will be broadcast on Fox and radio coverage of the game will be provided by STAR 94 FM and 790 The Zone AM.