It has been interesting to listen to the narrative of the Vikings this season, hearing fans talk of improvement despite a losing record and national outlets praise the job first-year coach Mike Zimmer has done in the face of adversity.

We're not here to disagree with either of those things, but now that the final ledger is set, it is worthwhile to ask a fundamental question: Are the Vikings better off than they were a year ago, or are they simply the beneficiaries of a shift in expectations?

It's fair to ask considering the 2013 Vikings, for as much of a mess as they were after coming off a playoff berth in 2012, outperformed this year's team in some very key areas. Last year's Vikings scored 391 points and reached at least 20 points in 12 of 16 games. This year's team finished with just 325 and failed to reach 20 points nine times, including Sunday.

For as bad as the 2013 Vikings were in the first half of the season, they did have a winning record (4-3-1) in the second half and largely broke their bad habit of coughing up late leads. This year's squad was 4-4 in the second half, a mark that would have been better had they won games against Detroit and Miami in which they held 14-0 leads.

To be sure, there are clear areas where this year's team has made strides. The pass defense went from being a train wreck to being functional, and the defense overall shaved more than a touchdown a game off its average points allowed from last year to this year — an admirable achievement upon which Zimmer can hang his hat.

And even though the passing offense produced in roughly the same way this year as it did during last year's hodgepodge disaster, the strides made by Teddy Bridgewater over the course of the season cannot be ignored.

The offensive line? It was a major problem a year ago and continues to be a problem. Cordarrelle Patterson took about three steps back with each foot. What we will never know is how much this year's team was impacted by Adrian Peterson's absence, though it cannot be understated (even if the 2014 Vikings only had about 20 fewer rushing yards per game than a year ago).

So where do the Vikings stand? The conclusion is part statistical and part "eye test," both of which can be dangerously deceiving.

Our take is that because of the strides made by Bridgewater and the defense, the Vikings' two most glaring problems — and two of the hardest problems to fix in the NFL — are on the way to becoming pluses instead of minuses. And because of that, the Vikings now are better off than they were a year ago.

But Zimmer and Co. also benefited this year from just how bad last year's team was by comparison. The Vikings will get no such free pass in 2015, particularly if the "team on the rise" narrative continues.

MICHAEL RAND