While this idea is crazy it isn’t totally crazy that Rs could convince 2-3 Ds to flip to someone less toxic (say, Fitzpatrick) based on some weird promises. I don’t think the coalition would ever last and odds are no R who could attract D votes for speaker could hold the R caucus together in the first place, but with how close the majority will be and how toxic Pelosi is it isn’t totally insane that there could be more than just token opposition when it comes down to a vote.
All that being said, Pelosi is still a 95% favorite to be the next speaker. It’s just she isn’t a 99.9%+ favorite like in prior cycles.
There was talk about Pelosi helping Boehner keep his job a while back, but it never came to be, because as you point out, any Speaker who needs the support of members of the other party would face immediate revolt from their own caucus, even if they somehow managed to get the votes.
