The 2019 NFL Draft hasn’t even happened and the buzz for Tua Tagovailoa in 2020 is already beginning.

It’s understandable that would be the case in this 24/7, 365 never-ending NFL news cycle. That often happens when it seems like the current draft doesn’t have a bona fide No. 1 quarterback prospect. That’s why some will likely flip the page on the 2019 class and hold off until 2020 to invest in a franchise quarterback.

Some, however, are doing that more publicly than others. When it was reported on Sunday that Ryan Fitzpatrick was signing with the Miami Dolphins, that came with a spicy extra nugget attached.

It’s Tua time.

And on that note, tanking season has officially begun in the NFL. Or has it?

You see, tanking in the NFL isn’t like tanking in the NBA for a variety of reasons. It’s widely accepted in the NBA now in what’s a superstar league. That’s not to say that the NFL isn’t or that there won’t be a few front offices like Miami hoping that if they do miss the playoffs, they do so by a country mile.

But this belief that Miami or anyone else will be able to follow the #TankForTua plan to landing the Alabama quarterback seems foolish.

Credit: Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports

Let’s start with the fact that rarely does a quarterback enter what’s presumably his final college season as the obvious No. 1 overall pick and end up as that. We pick these guys apart so much because they’re on national T.V. every week, and seeing them fail — for some people — is more noteworthy than seeing them succeed.

Jameis Winston and Andrew Luck both followed that challenging path albeit with different levels of success. Let’s talk about Luck because the “suck for Luck” campaign was recent enough to draw some comparisons to what we’re already seeing with Tagovailoa.

As you’ll recall, Luck was considered to be the best quarterback prospect since Peyton Manning. The idea of him potentially replacing Manning became more realistic when the future Hall of Fame signal-caller was ruled out for the season with a serious neck injury. Manning wasn’t officially put on injured reserve until late September. Many still believed that Manning could return to the Colts and that his potentially career-threatening injury was worth waiting on.

“Suck for Luck” became a real thing in Indianapolis when Curtis Painter was horrible and the season was lost by early October. It wasn’t a preseason storyline for the Colts. Did the Colts truly “suck for Luck?” To be honest, I don’t know. Oddly enough, I actually interned with the team in 2011, so I was at every home game and even I couldn’t definitively say that they tanked so that they’d have the No. 1 overall pick.

But I’ll say this — tanking when you lose the best player and the highest-paid player in franchise history is easier than what the Dolphins will reportedly try to do this year.

Fitzpatrick, even at 36 years old, is probably just good enough to avoid being the laughing stock of the NFL. And even if he wasn’t, the margin for error for tanking is so slim. It isn’t the NBA where you have 82 games. One game can make or break a tank in the NFL. It also isn’t the NBA where you have all this guaranteed money with long careers. There’s too much pride in the NFL for that model to consciously exist with a franchise from start to finish.

The same year the “suck for Luck” movement swept the NFL, it looked like the Dolphins were heading in that direction after an offseason of unloading a bunch of key veterans like Ronnie Brown and Ricky Williams. They started 0-7. Easy tank, right? Not exactly. The Dolphins went 4-2 after that and even fired head coach Tony Sparano, which looking back on it now, seems like an obvious tank move. They then finished the year 2-1 with interim coach Todd Bowles to earn a 6-10 record and the No. 8 overall pick in the 2012 NFL Draft. They selected Ryan Tannehill.

Too. Much. Pride.

That’s how the Dolphins got to this spot now where they’re apparently leaking their plan to lock up a top pick and draft Tagovailoa. It seems like a risky move to put all the eggs in the basket of someone who’s finishing his sophomore year in college.

But given the Dolphins’ history, it makes sense. Including that 6-10 season in 2011, Miami has won between 6 and 10 games each of the past 10 years. They had 0 playoff wins (only 1 appearance) and the only time they drafted better than No. 8 was in 2013 when they traded the No. 12 overall pick and a second-rounder to the Raiders so that they could move up to No. 3 to take Oregon defensive end Dion Jordan (he turned out to be a bust).

So yeah, it would be understandable if that was the big-picture plan with a first-year coach. As of right now, who wouldn’t want Tagovailoa? He checks all the boxes of a future franchise quarterback both mentally and physically.

I bring this up because this storyline seems like it isn’t going anywhere as long as Tagovailoa is healthy. In this offense-happy era of the NFL, getting someone who can pick a defense apart like Tagovailoa can be the difference in perennial mediocrity and a Super Bowl.

I just struggle to think that all the stars will align for the Dolphins — or anyone — to actively pull off the #TankForTua strategy.