NFLPA chief DeMaurice Smith proposed Wednesday to abolish the annual NFL scouting combine and replace it with regional pro days.

Smith made the comments at the NFLPA’s annual Super Bowl conference in Phoenix.

Smith took aim at the timing of the combine along with draft prospects’ having to waive their medical rights as part of the process.

“Who decided that it was a good idea to take your son and have him exclusively try out for the NFL’s exclusive way of getting into the league — for the most part, unless you’re a free-agent player? You have to be invited to the combine,” Smith said of the combine, which takes place annually in February or March.

“As soon as you show up, you have to waive all of your medical rights,” Smith went on. “Would you want your son to spend hours inside of an MRI (machine) and then be evaluated by 32 separate team doctors who are, by the way, are only doing it for one reason? What’s the reason? To decrease your draft value.”

Smith said the internet has provided all of the relevant information any teams would need to know, since “we’ve been tracking these players since grade school.”

“So, we’re now in an era where we know exactly how fast these guys can run, how much they can live, how far they can jump, do all of those things. Why do we insist on them showing up in Indianapolis? It’s not for anything physical, right? It’s for the teams to be able to engage in intrusive employment actions that don’t exist anywhere else.”

The 2023 combine is March 2-5 in Indianapolis.

–Field Level Media

The San Francisco 49ers avoided a worst-case scenario with quarterback Brock Purdy, who will have surgery to repair his torn ACL rather than Tommy John surgery.

Rather than being sidelined up to a year, Purdy is expected to miss six months and be ready for training camp.

That still means the last pick in the 2022 draft who won his first seven starts as a rookie will miss the team’s offseason program. And at least one sportsbook believes that gives Trey Lance the inside track to be the 49ers starter to open next season.

Lance is being offered as the -500 favorite by PointsBet to start Week 1 next season ahead of Purdy (+300). The only other player being offered odds on is recently retired Tom Brady at +5000.

Lance, the third overall pick in the 2021 draft, has thrown a total of 102 passes across his first two NFL seasons. That’s 68 fewer than Purdy, who was thrust into the starting job midway through his rookie year after Jimmy Garoppolo suffered a foot injury in Week 13.

Garoppolo was filling in for Lance, who suffered a season-ending broken ankle in Week 2.

Now it’s Lance who finds himself as the focal point of the 49ers’ offseason, with coach Kyle Shanahan saying last week that he doesn’t see a scenario in which the team brings Garoppolo back. The sportsbook isn’t even offering odds on Garoppolo opening next season under center for San Francisco.

Lance, who declared for the NFL draft after North Dakota State moved its COVID-delayed 2020 season to the following spring, has played eight football games in the past three years. That includes going 2-2 as a starter for the 49ers while completing just 54.9 percent of his career NFL passes with five touchdowns and three interceptions.

It’s an incredibly small sample size for a team coming off a run to the NFC Championship on the shoulders of their third-string quarterback from training camp.

That’s why many believe the job should be Purdy’s — if “Mr. Irrelevant” from last year’s draft is healthy. That includes the best quarterback in franchise history.

“If Purdy’s healthy I think it’s his job,” Montana said Wednesday, per ProFootballTalk.com.

Lance will receive the bulk of the reps with the first team during the offseason program, but Montana believes his overall body of work remains too small to be trusted at the helm of a Super Bowl-caliber offense.

“I don’t think he’s ready yet,” Montana said. “I don’t think he’s ready to take that caliber team. Talented kid, and he might be, part way through the year if he gets more starts.

“I don’t know, but do you want to turn over a team that you want to get off to a great start with a guy you still have a question about?”

–Field Level Media

NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said Wednesday that the officiating in the league has never been better.

Goodell made the assertion at his annual news conference in Phoenix ahead of Super Bowl LVII — his state of the NFL address.

Goodell touched on several other flashpoints — including minority hiring, player health and safety, the Washington Commanders investigation and potential sale, future plans to flex “Thursday Night Football” and when the site of Super Bowl LX will be announced.

On the topic of officiating, Goodell said mistakes are unavoidable but threw his full support behind the crews.

“I don’t think it’s ever been better in the league,” Goodell said. “There are over 42,000 plays in a season. Multiple infractions could occur on any play. Take that out or extrapolate that. That’s hundreds if not millions of potential fouls. And our officials do an extraordinary job of getting those. Are there mistakes in the context of that? Yes, they are not perfect and officiating never will be.”

His comments come less than two weeks since controversial calls in both championship games.

“We may not agree with every TV announcer or officiating expert, but we think our officials are doing a great job,” Goodell said.

Reacting to recent comments from Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers, who said the officials’ inconsistency was due to several referees leaving for network TV roles, Goodell said that wasn’t a factor.

“Are we losing people from the field to the booth? There are some that never even officiated on the NFL field, and so we didn’t lose anyone,” Goodell said. “We may have lost them from our office, but we didn’t lose them from officiating on the field. Others are taking on that responsibility at the end of their careers. So, I do not think that’s a factor at all. Zero.”

Goodell touched on several other topics Wednesday:

Minority hirings: Goodell credited the recently implemented coach and front office accelerator program with helping to introduce teams to a more diverse candidate pool. The commissioner told reporters that the program introduced the Tennessee Titans to their new general manager, Ran Carthon, in December.

Carthon, who is Black, is one of two minority GM or head coach candidates hired so far during this year’s cycle, along with DeMeco Ryans, who was named head coach of the Houston Texans last month.

“We’re gonna continue (the accelerator program),” Goodell said. “Our commitment’s strong to that. But that’s just one. We had a number of other programs that we’ve put in that I think are going to produce long-term results.

“Now we all want short-term results, but it’s important to have it be sustainable for the future, and we believe diversity makes us stronger. It’s about attracting the best talent and giving them the best opportunity to be successful. To me, that’s at the core of what we do. We want the changes to be really fundamental and sound and sustainable.”

Health and safety: Goodell addressed the modified concussion protocols that the NFL and the NFLPA agreed to after an investigation determined that the previous protocols did not lead to the intended result with Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa.

“Any time we can change the protocols to make it safer for our players, we’re gonna do that,” Goodell said. “What we changed in October is something that we thought would give us a better opportunity to treat those conditions more conservatively. … I think that’s also why concussions went up this year because we had a broader definition, a more conservative definition. We had an increase of 17 percent of evaluations. So if you have more evaluations, you’re going to have more concussions.”

The commissioner added that the next move in concussion prevention will be improvements to the helmets.

Washington Commanders investigation/potential sale: On the topic of Mary Jo White’s investigation into misconduct by the team’s owner, Daniel Snyder, Goodell said there’s no timeline in place for White to conclude her investigation and report her findings to the NFL.

“There is no timeline given to Mary Jo White,” Goodell said. “She is authorized to work independently. There is no timeline for her to come to any conclusions.”

As for the potential sale of the team, Goodell said the process of finding a buyer is underway but the league won’t be involved until the other owners vote whether to approve a deal.

“The Commanders are under a process. That’s their process. Ultimately, if they reach a conclusion and have someone joining the ownership group or buying the team, that’s something the ownership will look at.”

Site of Super Bowl LX: The Super Bowl locations for the next two seasons are set, with Las Vegas hosting Super Bowl LVII and New Orleans welcoming Super Bowl LIX to town in 2025.

As for the 60th (LX) and 61st (LXI) Super Bowls, Goodell said the selection for LX in 2026 will be made later this year. LXI’s location in 2027 could also be determined in 2023.

“Thursday Night Football” flex?: With flexible scheduling for “Monday Night Football” being implemented this year for December games, Goodell hinted that the league’s schedule could include flex games for “Thursday Night Football” in the future.

“This is the first year of our new deals which will have flexible scheduling on Monday night,” he said. “So we’ll have flexible scheduling on Sundays and Mondays, it wouldn’t at all surprise me at some point that we have it on Thursdays, at some stage. Not today, but it’ll certainly be something that’ll be on our horizon.”

–Field Level Media

Washington Commanders head coach Ron Rivera said Wednesday that Sam Howell — who has thrown 19 passes in the NFL — will enter the offseason as the team’s first-string quarterback.

Further, Rivera said the Commanders are not interested in signing — or trading for — one of the veteran quarterbacks expected to be available this offseason.

Rivera made the comments during three separate interviews Wednesday after being named the recipient of the 2022 Salute to Service Award.

“The biggest thing we decided is he will start out as QB1,” Rivera told PFT Live. “He will most certainly get the first opportunity. We go into OTAs and minicamp, he’ll be QB1. He’ll fight for that position. We’ll give him every opportunity to earn it, and we’ll see what happens when we get into training camp and through it.”

As for pursuing Derek Carr via trade or signing free agent Jimmy Garoppolo?

“No,” Rivera said. “I think the biggest thing is we have to find a guy to come in that’s going to compete, but in terms of finding a guy you’re going to have to spend a lot of capital on, no.”

A fifth-round draft pick in 2022, Howell started the final game of his rookie season and completed 11 of 19 passes for 169 yards with one touchdown and one interception in a 26-6 win against the playoff-bound Dallas Cowboys.

“It’s his opportunity,” Rivera told reporters in a separate interview, where he said Howell is “more than likely” going to be QB1.

“This is a challenge to him. If he comes out and does the things that he’s capable of — we believe he’s capable of — he can most certainly be our guy. But we’ll find out,” Rivera added. “Again, that’s what competition’s going to do. It’s going to bring the best out in all our guys.”

The Commanders, who alternated quarterbacks Carson Wentz and Taylor Heinicke for the first 16 games, let go of offensive coordinator Scott Turner after finishing the season at 8-8-1.

The Commanders are still interviewing candidates to replace Turner.

Howell, 22, was inactive for nine games and did not play in the other seven games in which he was active in 2022.

The Commanders are expected to release Wentz before the league year begins in March. They acquired him from the Indianapolis Colts in an offseason trade and he finished 2-5 as the starter with 11 touchdown passes and nine interceptions.

Heinicke took over when Wentz got hurt and compiled a 5-3-1 record, completing 62.2 percent of his passes for a team-high 1,859 yards with 12 TDs and six picks.

If Howell is tabbed the Week 1 starter, he would make the Commanders’ seventh different starter in seven years.

–Field Level Media

Buffalo Bills safety Damar Hamlin was named the winner of the prestigious Alan Page Community Award on Wednesday.

Hamlin, who survived after falling into cardiac arrest during a game against the Cincinnati Bengals on Jan. 2, won the award sponsored by the NFL Players Association. The honor goes to the player “who goes above and beyond to perform community service.”

Nearly $9 million of donations have poured into Hamlin’s “Chasing M’s” foundation since he fought for his life on the field in Cincinnati.

“Giving back to my community has always been a big part of who I am,” Hamlin said while accepting the award Wednesday. “Thankful to my father who is right here behind me, growing up and just watching him do community days in our community. I just was always waiting on my time when it came.”

Hamlin was one of five finalists for the award. The others were New England Patriots cornerback Jonathan Jones, Washington Commanders offensive tackle Charles Leno Jr., Las Vegas Raiders tight end Darren Waller and Tampa Bay Buccaneers linebacker Devin White.

Hamlin received a $100,000 donation to his charity from NLFPA executive director DeMaurice Smith during the ceremony in Phoenix, four days before the Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles meet in Super Bowl LVII in nearby Glendale.

“It’s a blessing to be a blessing,” Hamlin said. “With that being said, I plan to never take this position for granted, and always have an urgent approach in helping my community and helping communities across the world.”

After collapsing on the field due to cardiac arrest, Hamlin was taken to University of Cincinnati Medical Center in critical condition and was placed on a ventilator. He was released nine days later.

Page, 77, was a star defensive tackle from 1967-81, primarily for the Minnesota Vikings. He won NFL Defensive Player of the Year and NFL MVP honors in 1971 and was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1988.

–Field Level Media