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Much of America is staring down the barrel of Hurricane Matthew, perhaps one of the worst storms the East Coast has seen in years, a Category 4 hurricane that could make landfall on the east coast of Florida some time late Thursday.

The NFL has a couple of teams in the path of the hurricane and, as such, has formulated contingency plans for both the Titans-Dolphins game on Sunday (1 p.m. ET kick in Miami) and the Buccaneers-Panthers game on Monday (8:30 p.m. ET kick in Charlotte).

"We are in close contact with local and state authorities about the hurricane. As always, our overriding concern is for public safety and not doing anything that will divert important resources away from communities that may be in distress," NFL spokesperson Natalie Ravitz said. "Consistent with that, we conducting contingency planning for Sunday's Tennessee at Miami game as well as Monday's Tampa Bay at Carolina game."

There's a pretty good chance that Charlotte is clear. Current projections for Matthew indicate the hurricane isn't likely to ever really impact the state of North Carolina.

However, hurricanes are, by their very nature, rather unpredictable. Matthew is currently trending like it will take a loop out into the ocean and come back towards Florida.

At that point it would likely be a tropical storm, but again: very unpredictable.

In the event that the storm decided to bolt up the east coast and hit North Carolina, the NFL and the city of Charlotte need plans. (Hurricane Hugo devastated the city when it rolled in just six hours after making landfall.)

Miami is even more important because of the location of the storm. It will, in all likelihood, be gone by the time Sunday at 1 p.m. ET comes around. But in the event it's not, or in the event it does damage to the area around the stadium, or in the event it strengths and comes back, it's always good to have an alternate plan.

Titans coach Mike Mularkey said earlier this week his team is planning on playing the game in Florida but would be perfectly fine with hosting the game in Nashville.

"We're prepared to go down, to travel down there," Mularkey said. "And if we got an extra home game, that wouldn't hurt either."

Multiple college football games -- including one at Central Florida, one at Florida Atlantic in Boca Raton and one at the University of Florida in Gainesville -- have already canceled their Saturday game. The NFL and the cities involved are wise to monitor as well.