TAMPA, Fla. — At a downtown park here on April 26, the Sexual Violence Task Force of Tampa Bay will host a “Take Back the Night” rally, a candlelight vigil and silent march to raise sexual assault awareness.

Four days later, and less than five miles away, executives sitting in the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ gleaming office complex must decide whether to use the first pick of the N.F.L. draft on Jameis Winston, the Florida State quarterback who was accused of raping a fellow student in 2012. Winston, 21, has asserted his innocence, did not face criminal charges and was recently cleared by Florida State of violating the university’s student code of conduct.

The downtrodden Buccaneers need a quarterback, and Winston, a Heisman Trophy winner in 2013, is seen as one of the top two available. But Winston’s checkered past — he was also involved in BB gun incidents, cited for shoplifting and suspended one game for shouting an obscene phrase on campus — has presented the team, and its fans, with a quandary that has divided and unsettled the Tampa Bay community.

In the wake of last year’s graphic video that showed the former Baltimore Ravens running back Ray Rice punching his future wife and the firestorm the league’s initial, light punishment of Rice generated, the N.F.L. announced that it was taking domestic violence and sexual assault matters more seriously. With the league’s general reputation in mind, however, it is unclear if the N.F.L. has substantively changed any policies when it comes to vetting draft prospects in the aftermath of the Rice scandal.