I'm going to be a bit anti-Mustachian here and say if you love sports, cutting cable isn't worth it. I tried last fall and I lasted about two weeks into the soccer season.
Here's a breakdown of sports by TV:
Baseball: local cable (STO, Root Sports, or Fox), FOX, TBS/TNT, ESPN
Basketball: local Fox Sports affiliate, ABC, ESPN, and TNT
Soccer (EPL): NBC Sports Network, NBC, USA
Soccer (Champions League): FS1, FS2, FOX
Hockey: local Fox Sports affiliate, NBC Sports Network, NBC
College Football: All Networks, All ESPNs, SEC Network, B1G Network, P12 Network, FS1, NBCSN
NFL: All Networks, ESPN, NFL Network
My favorite sports are as follows: (1) college football (Ohio State); (2) NFL (Browns); (3) MLB (Indians); (4) English Premier League (Chelsea).
I need cable for college football, EPL, and MLB. If you're just an NFL fanatic, then you're lucky because that's mostly local OTA TV. But for ESPN and NFL Network, OP is mistaken because those apps will (a) take you to a screen requiring you to log in from a valid cable subscription and (b) won't let you stream live events to your TV (even now, with a DirecTV subscription, I cannot stream live events from my phone to my TV).
As an anecdotal example, last fall, I signed up for sling TV (for $20/month) and bought an HDTV antenna ($50), and also bothered my law school roommate for his DirectTV password (so I could watch the EPL). This resulted in two really aggravating things--it was very frustrating streaming games I actually cared about (there's nothing like lag on a key third down play in the 4th quarter) and, more importantly, when I really wanted to see a game that I couldn't watch at home, I ended up going to a bar and spending $15 on two beers and a sandwich anyway.
Bottom line was that cutting the chord meant that I was jumping through a ton of hoops and spending pretty much the same amount of money but just via different mediums. It was similar to my Pittsburgh friend who "cut the chord," but had Hulu, Amazon Prime, Netflix, and Sling TV (more expensive than my cable package). He also has a premium internet plan so he can stream on multiple TVs.
Meanwhile, DirecTV's Xtra package is $30/month for the first year and admittedly $48 after all the charges ($576/year). It includes all the ESPNs, all the networks, NBCSN, FS1, BTN, etc. When that runs out I will cancel it and put it in my GF's name. That's not much more than Sling TV ($240/year), a good antenna ($50), going out a bunch to watch games you can't watch (cost undetermined), and high cost technology upgrades to be able to stream games (if possible).
The TL;DR is this: I've relentlessly cut a lot of expenses--still driving a 2007 Ford Focus (no payment), lowered my car insurance, lowered my cell phone payment, buy smarter at the grocery store, etc. And I've found that simply paying $48/month for DirecTV so I can watch sports is (a) about the same as Sling TV/antenna/going out to watch games and (b) is way less of a hassle.