After allegations that Caleb Brantley hit a woman outside a bar just before the draft, the Browns have reserved the right to part ways with their sixth-round pick.
And Browns owner Dee Haslam said she’s reserving the right to trust her football people on bringing in a talented player with such a mark on his record so soon before the draft.
Via Dan Labbe of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, Haslam said she was willing to trust their process that went into selecting the Florida defensive lineman when they did.
“We really trust our football personnel group to make these decisions and they vet every situation very carefully,” Haslam said. “They do their research. We trusted that, and we have to trust in that.”
Brantley hasn’t been formally charged, and participated in the team’s rookie minicamp last weekend, saying he wanted to use the incident as motivation.
Haslam said that executive Sashi Brown and her team had her confidence to make such picks without seeking specific approval from ownership.
“We really trust our football organization,” she said. “I’m sure you could feel that. Sashi and our personnel group have done an amazing job. So we just trust them and their decisions. So we’re excited to have Caleb on the team. We feel like he’s doing the right things to get better. . . .
“These are young men, and you do understand that we’re doing our best to build great men. So we hope surrounding him and doing the right things, he can become that great man. He has work to do. But we are confident that as an organization we’ll continue to work on that.”
The Browns have given themselves plenty of leeway with Brantley in case the incident doesn’t resolve itself the way he thinks it will, saying they’re willing to step away from him if need be.