I lean towards conspiracy theory.
They were going to fire him this season no matter what, just like they fired David Culley last season.
Unfortunately, Smith, like Culley before him, did a better job than they really wanted despite the poor win-loss record, so it came out looking worse than they wanted. People were saying almost exactly 1 year ago that Lovie Smith was being set up for a 1 and done.
Actually, I did say that about 11 months ago:
The scuttlebutt last season (and the season before) was they wanted Josh McCown but that plan got torpedoed by the Flores lawsuit. I wouldn’t be shocked if they either went with another obvious 1 year hiring or went straight to McCown.
Then again, Jack Easterby is out now and Caserio seems to have a bit firmer control, so maybe they’re actually looking for a real coach of the future this time. Seems to be mainly Cal McNair who is fighting against the better candidates and there’s not a lot of use fighting the owner on stuff like that.