The San Francisco 49ers' quarterback set a timetable for a potential season-ending surgery yesterday, saying that rest alone has done little to improve the discomfort he feels in his separated right shoulder.

Smith said doctors will evaluate the shoulder Monday or Tuesday. If there is still only minimal progress, he might surrender and have an operation to reattach the ligaments near his collarbone. Recovery time is 10 to 12 weeks.

"Obviously, you want to avoid (surgery), but if it had to be done, it's not a huge, huge operation," Smith said.

The quarterback has not thrown a football since warming up Nov. 18 before the St. Louis Rams game, in which he served as a backup. Since then, Smith said it hurts so much to lift his arm above his head that he does so only when he gets dressed.

Time off was supposed to allow the damaged ligaments to fix themselves — "scarring down," Smith called it — but there has been no sign of progress. "They haven't healed at all," he said.

It has already been an arduous road since Sept. 30, when Smith was hurt on a sack by Seattle's Rocky Bernard.

The quarterback sat out for three weeks before coming back Oct. 28. Upon his return, Smith played poorly for three games, setting off a tense exchange between Smith and coach Mike Nolan about whether the player was brought back too soon.

The quarterback saw Dr. James Andrews in Birmingham, Ala., on Nov. 20, when an MRI exam revealed that the ligaments had yet to scar over.

Still, Smith retains hope for a comeback over the season's final month.