The 2021 NFL Draft will take place between Thursday, April 29, and Saturday, May 1. The schedule is as follows:
Round 1: Thursday starting at 8 p.m. ET
Rounds 2-3: Friday starting at 7 p.m. ET
Rounds 4-7: Saturday starting at 12 p.m. ET
The event will be broadcast on ABC, ESPN, and NFL Network, and will take place in Cleveland, Ohio.
The NFL expanded the draft to the three-day format back in 2010, and there have been whispers that the league could look to broaden the affair to a fourth day in future years. The draft generally takes place around the end of April each year. The most recent exception was the 2014 NFL Draft, which was delayed until almost mid-May, thanks to a scheduling conflict at Radio City Music Hall in New York City.
While we can peg down a start time for the draft, it’s not as easy to predict when each day will end. Teams have the following amount of time to make their selections in each round:
1st Round: 10 minutes
2nd Round: 7 minutes
3rd Round: 5 minutes
4th Round: 5 minutes
5th Round: 5 minutes
6th Round: 5 minutes
7th Round: 4 minutes
If a team doesn’t make their selection within that allotted amount of time, the next team is allowed to skip ahead and submit their pick. We saw this in 2003 when both the Jaguars and Panthers jumped the Vikings, who had the 7th-overall pick.
The allotted amount of “time on the clock” has changed a bit over the years. Until 2017, teams had 15 minutes to make their first-round selections.
Pickswise Guide to the 2021 NFL Draft
A comprehensive guide to all your 2021 NFL Draft questions below:
- When is the Draft?
- Where is the Draft?
- What time does the Draft Start?
- How does the Draft work?
- Where can I watch the Draft?
- How many rounds are there?
- How many picks are there?
- Draft Order from 1-32
- How much time between Draft picks?
- How many picks does my team have?
- Who will be the first pick in the Draft?
- How much do Draft picks make?
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