EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. — Donovan McNabb, Brian Westbrook and the desperate Philadelphia Eagles proved more of a headache for the New York Giants than all the chaos surrounding Plaxico Burress.

Westbrook ran 30 yards for a touchdown, caught another 40-yarder from McNabb, and the Eagles defense limited the Giants to 211 total yards in a 20-14 victory Sunday that ended the Super Bowl champions’ seven-game winning streak. The Giants still clinched the NFC East with Dallas’ loss against Pittsburgh.

‘‘I just think we kind of beat them,’’ said Eagles tight end L.J. Smith, who has six catches for 44 yards. ‘‘It’s tough to say. That’s one of those: ‘How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll?’ Who knows if the distractions hurt them and helped us? I don’t know.’’

The statistics were all Philadelphia (7-5-1).

McNabb finished 19-of-30 for 191 yards on a windy day that the Eagles controlled the ball for almost 35 minutes. Westbrook was the workhorse, gaining 131 yards on a season-high 33 carries and catching six passes for 72 yards. The defense limited New York’s league-leading rushing game to 88 yards.

‘‘This was a big win,’’ Westbrook said after the Eagles won their second straight game. ‘‘But we’re in a position now where we have to win them all.’’

However, this is going to remembered as the game the Super Bowl champions came up empty on offense and defense after a week of scrutiny and media hype following the suspension of Burress for the rest of the season in a wake of nightclub shooting.

It also didn’t help that there is an ongoing investigation into the role of middle linebacker Antonio Pierce in the aftermath of the incident in which Burress shot himself.

‘‘It’s a great story,’’ defensive end Mathias Kiwanuka said. ‘‘I’m glad you can use it, but it’s a dead issue with us.’’

Giants coach Tom Coughlin also downplayed the distraction theory.

“We didn't play well,” he said. “We didn't play the way we had been playing. We're a better football team than that. As far as all those other things go, that's all speculation.”