ESPN unveiled some new features in its 2015 debut of Monday Night Football, including a new opening (weak), a new score box (quite nice) and never-before-seen camera angles (read the headline). Overall, the changes brought improvements to a telecast that’s been getting steadily better ever year since Jon Gruden joined Mike Tirico in the booth in 2009. What did we see?

1. Let’s start with the good. When the Falcons made their way down to the Eagles’ four-yard line early in the second quarter, ESPN cut to a shot that looked like it was coming from the 15th row of the expensive seats right at the goal line. It was the closest I’ve ever seen a television broadcast match the experience of being the stands. Many have tried (remember that floating camera from the Final Four a few years ago?) And, as luck would have it, the first time ESPN went to the shot, Julio Jones ended up catching a touchdown pass. A screenshot of the angle (via @worldofissac) is both below and in the picture at the top of this post.

The camera is a new iMovix Phantom camera in high frame rate UHD 4k, which doesn’t mean anything to me and probably 99.99% of viewers, but is clearly pretty sweet. Yet because of how the first half of the game developed, the shot was only used once. (Even when the Eagles were on the eight-yard line, ESPN didn’t use it. Perhaps it’s five yards and in?)

2. There was also a tremendous camera angle from directly behind kicker Matt Bryant that is on the normal Spidercam you see at many sporting events, yet this appears to be one of the lowest-reaching ones I’ve ever seen.

3. ESPN unveiled a new score box, which easily accomplished the two main goals of any score box: a) It was easy to read; b) It was completely unobtrusive, so much, in fact, that the box seamlessly fades out when the play begins.

That could have been dangerous — sometimes a network will take a bug and put it up late enough that forgetful fans don’t know what down it is. But the box comes back quickly enough and the down-and-distance image on the field helps the forgetful fan anyway.

The score box fades away.

Also, in a they-thought-of-everything move, the bug seems to stay on screen with under two minutes left in a half. (There is one problem with that, however: When a flag is thrown, the bug awkwardly comes back on screen awkwardly to alert viewers.) Normally we fear change, but these were all clearly changes for the good.

4. The Pylon Cam has been used before (most notably in the 2015 college football playoff title game) but ESPN says it has fine tuned the innovation and, once again, it looks really good, even if the times it was deployed on Monday night was more for show than anything since there weren’t any true goal line plays.

5. Mike Tirico and Gruden started the game in yellow blazers to honor the late Frank Gifford. It was a nice tribute to the longtime MNF announcer, but had a lesser impact when the duo switched back to regular jackets later.

6. The less that can be said about the new MNF intro, the better. Remember back in the day when Howard Cosell or Frank Gifford or Al Michaels would build up toward the game with over-the-top monologues playing over highlights from the team’s seasons as the rise of Heavy Action would build and build, culminating in the famous eight-note crescendo just as the cameras cut to a live shot of the stadium?

Yeah, that was awesome. A bizarre tiptoe down memory lane, with some of the greatest Monday night plays recreated like a video game, all while a watered-down version of Heavy Action plays — which is what debuted Monday — is not the same thing. Where have you gone, Hank Williams Jr.? Our nation turns it lonely ears to you (but only in terms of music that opens football games).

7. Halftime show featuring Cris Carter and Ray Lewis. I think my remote became self-aware right at the moment they appeared and muted the TV all by itself. Strange as it is to say, things are due to get better next week when Chris Berman is back in the studio (he’s calling the second MNF game after Falcons-Eagles).