Have you ever attended a white elephant party? They can be great fun, especially the kind where you can steal from each other. Invariably there will be a few gifts that are actually good, and those become the theft targets, while the true white elephant gifts become disappointments to those who get stuck with them. Score the Deion Sanders limited edition Hall of Fame bobblehead while you can, but avoid the used single-cup coffee maker!

With mock auction season in full bloom, plenty of trends have emerged. I am here to point out draft day steals, and which white elephants you should avoid.

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Steals:

It should hardly be a surprise that Matthew Stafford made this list. I have been a proponent of the Glass Shoulder as a top-7 quarterback candidate. His draft status puts him somewhere ripe for the stealing, though, as he is being drafted quite late for a guy with so much fantasy potential. With the risk built into his ADP — he is being drafted so low in large part due to his injury issues — you can hardly go wrong by drafting him in the 9th or 10th round. The hype train is slowly accelerating for him, but Sam Bradford is another QB who should have a good fantasy season now that Josh McDaniels is in town. The Rams may lack a marquee wide receiver, but then again, so did the Broncos last year before McDaniels made Brandon Lloyd into a fantasy star. At the very least grabbing Bradford as a high-end QB2 is a low risk proposition.

At running back, it has become plainly evident that Ryan Grant is the man in Green Bay and James Starks his backup. I realize Grant is coming back from a season-ending injury last year, but he is being undervalued for a guy who will be, for all intents and purposes, the feature back in a great Packers offense. He may not be a PPR juggernaut, but Grant was well-regarded last preseason when he was the clear-cut lead back. He scored 235 PPR points in 2009 while sporting a 4.4 YPC, and now that Aaron Rodgers is a full-fledged star quarterback, Grant figures to have more space in the running game. Jahvid Best, meanwhile, was already being undervalued before the recent injury to Mikel Leshoure, though that might propel his ADP up the charts. If he is there in the 9th round like he is on average in Yahoo leagues, though, he becomes an immense steal. His 3.3 YPC is not scary, but he was running on a bum toe most of last season. Best did flash his fantasy potential last season with two big fantasy games at the beginning of the year before his toe turfed up on him.

Benson is a guy who I am not particularly high on in that Cincinnati Bengals offense that figures to be anemic. He will reprise his feature back role, though, making him a decent RB2 candidate, especially in standard scoring leagues. Bernard Scott has yet to seriously threaten Benson’s playing time despite the supposed upside, and I think that trend will continue this year. If you play your cards right, you might be able to snag him as your RB3 based on his ADP. Of course, if news of a suspension comes down the pipe then forget I ever said anything. Injuries and disappointing play have put Beanie Wells on the fast track to “bust” status, but his only competition for playing time is rookie Ryan Williams in Arizona, and he has reportedly regained the burst he had in college. I personally do not like Wells as a fantasy option, but at his ADP, drafting him should be a low-risk proposition.

Brandon Marshall and Santonio Holmes are being drafted as WR2s when they are both likely WR1s, especially Marshall. The talented wide receiver was targeted 132 times last season despite missing two games, but had a disappointing fantasy season due to a poor touchdown rate, scoring just 3 TDs on the season. That will regress positively this year, and if his rapport with Chad Henne improves he could threaten to crack the top 5 WRs in a big way. Holmes is the pass-catching threat in the Jets offense with Edwards gone, and he already averaged 13.6 PPR points per game after his return from a four-game suspension last season. Prorated that is 218 points over a 16-game season.

Methinks Mike Clay has singlehandedly driven up Collie’s ADP in the GoAheadScore column, but he is being severely under-drafted in other places. The fact that you can score him so late in Yahoo and ESPN leagues is a testament to the concussion fears, but for a guy who was leading the league in fantasy scoring at the position last year before his injury he is not getting much love. Collie is reportedly healthy and ready to return to the fantasy elite. One of my new sleepers at the position is Jason Avant, for whom I do not even have good ADP data because he is not being drafted. He is the WR3 in a good Philadelphia offense, and with Jeremy Maclin missing extended time due to his undisclosed illness, Avant should be getting a big boost in playing time. He has not caught on in the fantasy realm yet, and thus becomes a huge late-round steal. Keep in mind that Avant caught 72.9% of the passes thrown his way last year, good for third in the league at wide receiver. If he is close to that and gets 100+ targets, that would make for a pretty good fantasy year.

I had to include Jimmy Graham in here, even though he is being drafted in a good spot on most sites. My main reason is to point out his horrifically low ADP on ESPN – you can have a potential top-5 TE in the 10th round or later! Rob Gronkowski is another guy who is a bit undervalued. I understand his value is mitigated by the presence of Aaron Hernandez, but by all accounts Gronk has been a uncoverable beast in the preseason. He was clearly the TE1 for the Patriots during the second half of the season and should be a fantasy steal in the late rounds.

White Elephants:

I might catch some flak for putting Vick on here when Rodgers is so close in ADP, but I view Vick as the bigger risk. As the clear-cut QB1 in terms of ADP, there is a ton of pressure for him to deliver on your fantasy team. While I am not generally a fan of drafting a quarterback early, drafting one in the first round is particularly risky considering the position is so deep and there is a much bigger scarcity at running back and wide receiver. This is not to mention the fact that, while he does not tuck and run nearly as often, Vick is an injury waiting to happen with his propensity to scramble. I would let someone else take that risk – even if Vick lights up the league again, that owner will be hard-pressed to make up ground at the two biggest positions. To be fair, all of these arguments are valid for Aaron Rodgers as well, who is not being drafted far behind Vick and has injury concerns himself.

Michael Turner is going on thirty, has a lot of carries on those legs over the past three seasons, and obviously wore down during the second half of last season, averaging 3.5 YPC over his last six games. The Falcons also drafted Jacquizz Rodgers and brought back Jason Snelling. These red flags should be well more than enough to avoid drafting Turner as your RB1, especially in PPR leagues. There is a lot of risk involved in any of the top running backs drafted, but Turner is riskier than most, with less upside to boot.

Shonn Greene is a guy who is getting an inexplicable reprieve from fantasy owners, despite being a disappointment in both of his first seasons in the NFL. I agree the upside is there, but it has always been there and he has not delivered. There is a reason the Jets drafted Bilal Powell, and it was not to back up Joe McKnight – New York decided to grab some Greene insurance. Having proven nothing and LaDainian Tomlinson still taking plenty of carries, I do not see Greene anywhere near a fantasy RB2, where he is currently being drafted.

Speaking of proving nothing, Michael Crabtree is being drafted as a high-end WR3? Nevermind that he will be injured to start the season, the San Francisco diva has been a huge fantasy disappointment being drafted in a very similar position the past couple of years. He has an average quarterback and a less-than-stellar work ethic to go along with his injury risk, not to mention he is likely second banana to Braylon Edwards now. Meanwhile, Kenny Britt is a walking arrest warrant, liable to blow up your fantasy team with a huge suspension if you take a risk on him. While he is a huge talent, the risk outweighs the benefit. If either of these receivers falls far in your draft, then take a flier on him. But do not expect them to deliver on their ADP.

Finally, I come to Antonio Gates, a player whom I think is every bit as good as advertised. But is he worth it in the third round? The talented tight end is now 31 years old and coming off a nasty foot injury. He is reportedly healthy, but the risk might be too much to draft him so high. This is all not to say that the Chargers actually have Vincent Jackson to start the season and retained Malcolm Floyd’s services, possibly leaving less targets for Gates. He is a high-risk, high-reward guy at his position, but I personally think the third round is too high to draft a tight end, a position that is perhaps the deepest it has ever been.

Questions and comments are always welcome via Twitter – @PFF_Alex.

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