I guess we just see things differently. For me anyway, it never about the record as much as it is about how they get there. There was not one single game THIS YEAR that I felt they didn't have a chance to win. That cannot be said in years past. That IS improvement IMO. Yes it leads to more frustration when they don't who up on a given week, but to say they aren't better just isn't accurate.
Find me another team in the NFL that suffered the number of injuries to KEY players that this team endured this year. They lose Bradford, C. Long, J. Long, Quick, Jenkins, T. Johnson, Austin (for a few games) Joyner and even Gaines in the last game of the season. I get all teams have injuries, but not many lose the number of players at such key positions. Add in the FACT that they remained the youngest team in the league which now exposes the lack of quality depth to replace these players, you get the inconsistent performances we witnessed this year.
From a coaching standpoint, you are forced to scale back game plans, and cannot do the things that you can with more experienced "starters". And that goes for both sides of the ball.
To ignore the reasons ( I know some call them excuses) for why they arrive at the record they have, is naive to me. Not saying you are ignoring them, but its never as simple as just looking at the W/L record and saying "you are what your record says you are".
Take a look at the Colts as an example. Everyone loves to point to how quickly they turned it around once Andrew Luck arrived. But comparing the schedules one would find out that W/L record of the opponents of the Colts won 31 LESS games than Rams opponents in 2013 & 2014. If you don't think that is a major factor in the overall record then, IMO, you are missing the big picture.