EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. – The Giants today added a fifth tight end to their roster when they claimed rookie Kaden Smith, who was waived Saturday by the San Francisco 49ers.
Smith, 6-5 and 249 pounds, has not played in a regular-season game.
To make room for Smith, the Giants waived running back Paul Perkins, who was inactive for the season's first two games.
Smith was a sixth-round draft choice (No. 174 overall) this year by the 49ers. He played college football at nearby Stanford, where he played in 25 games with 12 starts from 2016-18. Smith caught 70 passes for 1,049 yards and seven touchdowns. In 2018, he earned second-team All-Pac-12 honors after playing in 11 games and finishing with 47 receptions for 635 yards and two touchdowns.
Smith was a first-team all-state player at Marcus High School in Flower Mound, Texas.
He joins a tight ends unit that includes Evan Engram – who leads the team through two games with 17 receptions for 164 yards and a touchdown – Rhett Ellison, Garrett Dickerson (who has been inactive with a quad injury) and Eric Tomlinson, who was acquired off waivers on Sept. 1.
Perkins spent the entire 2018 season on the reserve/non-football injury list after suffering a torn pectoral muscle in an individual offseason workout.
A fifth-round draft choice by the Giants in 2016, he played in 25 games with five starts in two seasons and rushed for 546 yards on 153 carries and caught 23 passes for 208 yards.
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