Caleb Brantley

The Browns made Caleb Brantley a sixth-round selection in April's draft despite facing accusations that he hit a woman outside of a Florida bar. Brantley has not been officially charged.

(Joshua Gunter, cleveland.com)

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- Browns owner Dee Haslam said on Tuesday the decision to draft Florida defensive lineman Caleb Brantley came down to a simple factor: trusting the people in charge of the football side of things.

"We really trust our football personnel group to make these decisions and they vet every situation very carefully," Haslam said following a groundbreaking ceremony at John Adams High School for the installation of a new, turf football field. "They do their research. We trusted that, and we have to trust in that."

The Browns selected Brantley in the sixth round of last month's NFL Draft. Brantley has been accused of hitting a woman outside of a bar in Gainesville, Fla., but the defensive lineman has not been formally charged.

He participated in last weekend's rookie minicamp and said he was "looking forward to the facts coming out and the truth about what happened that night."

Brantley's attorney told cleveland.com's Mary Kay Cabot that she expects "a resolution of this case very soon and I expect it to be resolved in Mr. Brantley's favor."

Haslam reiterated on Wednesday what Executive Vice President of Player Personnel Sashi Brown said shortly after picking Brantley when he said that the decision to select Brantley did not need approval from ownership.

"We really trust our football organization," Haslam 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."

Haslam said it's hard to say whether the so-far-unresolved situation with Brantley will put the organization overall in a bad light, but she believes surrounding Brantley with the right people will only help.

"These are young men, and you do understand that we're doing our best to build great men," she said. "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."

Haslam said taking character risks on any draft pick in general comes down to trusting the people making the decisions.

"Our football personnel group has done a lot of research on these players, have met with them, have talked to them," she said. "They have confidence that these young men -- and they're young men -- are going to be able to be the football players and the men that we want them to be, or I don't think they would have drafted them."

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