Stale oats?

I'm just weighing out my crushed grains for an Irish Draught Ale extract brew with oats for this afternoons brewing. I got crushed Simpsons golden oats from Northern brewer, and quite frankly they smell kind of stale, or that's my interpretation of it anyways, or maybe that's just how they smell. I'm not sure if they are a specially roasted oat, but I may end up using some Trader Joe's steel-cut organic oats instead. Maybe I'm being paranoid, but I don't think it's worth tainting a whole batch of ale to save $1.75 bag of oats that I question.

In the past I've purchased steel-cut oats in the can from Ireland and they always smelled stale. I purchase the domestic ones from Trade Joe's and they never smell that way.