I know Walker won the MVP, and neither QB played particularly well, but I think the biggest advantage in that game was Sam Darnold over Drake Maye. As substandard as Darnold was, he still led 5 scoring drives, didn't turn the ball over and took only one sack. That made all the difference.
It made me think that even if McCarthy has a Maye-like level of improvement in his 2nd season, it's going to be very hard to count on a QB that young in a big game like this. Maye is a good young QB, but his inexperience was on full display last night.