The 2021 NFL Draft may have learned some fun lessons from its 2020 counterpart.

The 2020 edition was forced to be virtual for the first time, leading to views of head coaches in living rooms with their kids and raw excitement from draftees sitting at their home being taken into the NFL. It probably gave the league plenty of ideas of how to spice up the proceedings in 2021 with COVID-19 not totally out of the way.

The 2021 NFL Draft is slated to take place in Cleveland for the first time ever, but finalization of location likely won't come until closer to the end of April draft start. There will also be a first on the television side for the 2021 NFL Draft — it will be broadcast exclusively by NFL Network.

Here's everything you need to know about the 2021 NFL Draft, including the time, location, television schedule, draft order and the latest mock draft from Sporting News.

The 2018 NFL Draft was the 83rd annual meeting of National Football League (NFL) franchises to select newly eligible players for the 2018 NFL season.The draft was held on April 26–28 at AT&T Stadium in Arlington, Texas; it was the first draft to take place in an NFL stadium and the first to be held in Texas. In order to be eligible to enter the draft, players must be at least three years. The COVID-19 pandemic has caused concerns about the viability of pulling off an in-person event in which thousands of people — NFL coaches and scouts, agents, prospects, media and more —. List of NFL drafts. This list of NFL drafts provides a comprehensive accounting of all of the annual player selection meetings that have been held by the National Football League (NFL). The National Football League draft has taken place prior to every season since 1936.

MOCK DRAFT 2021:

When is the NFL Draft in 2021?

The 2015 NFL Draft will be held April 30-May 2 at the Auditorium Theatre of Roosevelt University in Chicago, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and Chicago. NFL Draft 2015: Dates, Times, Teams & Location 1. The Draft Is in Chicago, Illinois. The Chicago skyline and the Cloudgate aka Bean structure. For the first time. This Is Only the Second Theatre to Host the Draft. Roosevelt University’s Auditorium Theatre in Chicago.

Nfl Draft Date And Location

• Date: Thursday, April 29 (Round 1) Friday, April 30 (Rounds 2-3) Saturday, May 1 (Rounds 4-7)
• Start time: 8 p.m. ET (Thursday) 7 p.m. ET (Friday) Noon ET (Saturday)
• TV channel: NFL Network
• Live stream: NFL app

As the NFL has done for a while now, the draft will be split into three distinct days. Only the first round will take place on Thursday, April 29. The second and third rounds will take place on Friday night, and then the final four rounds of the draft will be conducted Saturday.

After the 2020 NFL Draft was conducted in a heavily virtual manner due to COVID-19, it hasn't yet been determined exactly how much of the draft will take place in the host city in 2021.

Nfl Draft Day Date

Where is the 2021 NFL Draft?

The 2021 NFL Draft is slated to take place in Cleveland, Ohio. That decision was made on May 22, 2019, at the league's annual spring meeting.

More specifics about Cleveland's hosting have yet to be totally announced in 2021 with the COVID-19 pandemic still hovering over the heads of decision-makers. Depending on the effectiveness of vaccines leading up to the draft, there could be a central hub in Cleveland while many of the draftees remain virtual, but that remains to be seen.

Below are the previous locations of the NFL Draft.

What time does the NFL Draft start?

The NFL could still choose to deviate from its past standard times for health and safety reasons, but the 2021 NFL Draft will likely start at the same times the drafts in recent years have.

That means prime time slots for each of the first three rounds. The first round on Thursday, April 29, gets going at 8 p.m. ET. Things start an hour earlier the next day to fit in both the second and third rounds. And Saturday's four rounds get underway at Noon ET.

As the draft goes on, teams get different lengths of time to make their selections. The first round provides 10 minutes to teams to pick, and that drops to seven minutes for rounds two and three. Rounds four through six have five minute pick times, and it's four minutes for the seventh and final round.

NFL Draft TV schedule

The 2021 NFL Draft will be shown exclusively on NFL Network. That's a change from last year, when ESPN, ESPN2 and ABC were all involved in the draft coverage.

Most cable and satellite providers offer NFL Network as part of their base package, as do most streaming services.

MORE: What channel is NFL Network?

NFL Draft pick order 2020

(The teams slotted in Pick Nos. 31-32 are in the Super Bowl.)

SN's latest mock draft