It is around 1 p.m. on a frigid Wednesday afternoon in northern New Jersey, and the toughest person in the XFL stalks the New York Guardians sidelines.

Darius Victor has snuck his way into a calisthenics drill at practice. It is nothing particularly taxing, but for a running back packing 226 pounds onto a 5-foot, 6-inch frame -- and one with a compromised ankle at the moment -- any false step could prove doom.

Victor has his head on a swivel, but not because of a roaming linebacker or a snarling safety.

Out of the corner of her eye, Madeleine Scaramuzzo Jones spots the Guardians running back and glares at him with the fire of a thousand suns. Victor stops dead in his tracks. He’s caught, and he knows not to test the woman they call Mad Dog.

“Aww, man, it’s her world, we just live in it,” Victor said of the head athletic trainer.

Like having a tail tucked between his legs, Victor shuffles back to the sideline and Scaramuzzo Jones nods.

“It’s hard because you know they want to play, and the coach wants them to play, and the coach looks at you like, ‘Why is this guy not playing?’ ” she said. “Coaches are experts on coaching, players are experts on playing -- this is my expertise. I don’t for a second think that I know how to do what they do, and there is that respect that I know what I’m doing in my position. I’ll let you do your job, you let me do mine.”

Could it be that the guardian to the Guardians’ long-term health is a 5-foot-nothing former gymnast with perhaps the best college football resume in the entire league?