As one NFL draft ends, the speculation for another begins.

Fire up the mock draft machine. It’s time to project who’ll need what a year from now. And according to almost every forecast, Alabama’s Tua Tagovailoa will be the No. 1 selection in the 2020 NFL draft.

The Tank for Tua movement is already catching on among a few NFL fan bases. Assuming he’ll have another season in the ballpark of the 2018 Heisman chase, Tagovailoa will be in position to leave Alabama a season early.

Before the 2019 draft in Nashville, we spoke with a few former quarterbacks who follow the NFL and college games to gauge Tagovailoa’s prospects and areas for improvement entering his junior season.

Daniel Jeremiah, a quarterback at Appalachian State from 1998-2000 and the NFL Network’s top draft analyst, spent time with Tagovailoa at the Elite 11 camp last year.

“I haven’t done a deep dive but he’s got everything that you want,” Jeremiah said. “He throws a beautiful ball. He’s anticipation thrower. He has a really quick mind. You see him go through progressions so fast. He doesn’t have the prototypical size. He doesn’t have a huge, huge arm but he’s got a lot of things you want.”

Height came up a few times in conversations about Tagovailoa. At 6-foot-1, he’s taller than the last two No. 1 quarterback picks. Baker Mayfield is 6-1 (rounding up from 6-feet, 5/8 inch) while Kyler Murray measured 5-10 at this year’s NFL Combine. Joel Klatt of Fox Sports said having those two come first will help Tagovailoa’s case, especially after Mayfield had a big rookie season.

Klatt, a three-year starting quarterback at Colorado, is impressed with Tagovailoa’s accuracy throwing downfield.

“To me, I think that’s one of the things that opens my eyes is that when he drops back and is going to attack down the field, he’s not hoping,” Klatt said. “You know, a lot of teams hope they can hit down the field. He’s attacking down the field with accuracy and with precision. I think it’s the best element of his game.”

That attacking mentality with the deep ball makes Klatt think of Mayfield. Jeremiah sees a little Steve Young in Tagovailoa as a left-hander who can move in and out of the pocket.

Kurt Warner, a Hall of Fame quarterback and former Super Bowl MVP, likes Tagovailoa’s accuracy, decision making and lack of turnovers.

“But they’re so talented that sometimes you have to take it with a grain of salt and go, OK, you watch some of those games when he struggled a little bit and you go, why did he struggle? He’s getting hit,” Warner said. “Things weren’t perfect around him and he started to struggle a little bit. You start to weigh that. But what we’ve seen in two years of playing and the level of consistency he’s had, the accuracy that he’s shown, I’m really excited to see how he progresses for another year and then what he can do at this level.”

Klatt also saw a few places Tagovailoa could improve as a junior. It’s not as much about mechanics or style but performing in the moment.

The elite quarterbacks play their best against top competition. He wants to see that from Tagovailoa.

“And I’m not just talking about numbers,” Klatt said. “A lot of people can fill up a stat sheet. I’m talking about the impactful numbers, the third-down numbers, what are you doing when you’re down a score, up a score, late in the game, things of that nature. I think Tua needs to take the next step in that regard because late in the season, I don’t think he played his best football. You could say it’s injury based and I’m fully in support of that but when you look at Dwayne (Haskins) played his best football against the No. 1 defense in the nation against Michigan.

Situationally, Tagovailoa completed 63.5-percent of his third-down pass (compared to 66.1 percent on first down and 75.6 percent on second) but struggled in key moments against Clemson in the national title game. Alabama was 4 of 13 on third downs and scored touchdowns on just 1 of 4 red-zone trips in the 44-16 loss.

“To me, that’s the next step for Tua,” Klatt said. “It’s not just being great against teams you should be great against, but what do you do when the chips are down.”

Michael Casagrande is an Alabama beat writer for the Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter @ByCasagrande or on Facebook.