Almost immediately after Alabama QB Tua Tagovailoa announced he would leave Tuscaloosa after his junior season, NFL Draft expert Mel Kiper Jr. of ESPN weighed in on the news.

Kiper lists Tagovailoa as the third-best player in the upcoming NFL Draft.

“A quarterback with that kind of talent about 87 touchdowns, Cari, only 11 picks you know he’s up at 70 percent completion percentage so precise so accurate a great leader, and if he’s healthy,” Kiper said on ESPN. “Obviously he’s right there with (LSU QB Joe) Burrow, but the durability concern is real. And that’s why it’s five Miami, six the Chargers, you want to get down to 18? That pick from Pittsburgh, Miami has a choice again there, they pick again in the 20s from Houston. So it’ll be interesting to see and ironically, Cari, Miami, they opted not to go with Drew Brees, because the shoulder, he ended up in New Orleans.”

Kiper then compared Tagovailoa as a “left-handed Drew Brees.”

“Now all of a sudden the decision Miami will have here, you remember the Chargers are at six, Cari, well they they like Tua better than (Oregon QB Justin) Herbert really want to move ahead, what’s going to happen there it makes an interesting dynamic is five and six depending upon how those two teams feel about Tua and the quarterback at Oregon Justin Herbert.”