It's not quite former New York Giants coach Jim Fassel shoving all his chips into the center of the table and guaranteeing the playoffs, but Houston Texans coach Gary Kubiak is pulling off his own gamble. And he's playing with his own money.

When Texans owner Bob McNair sat down with Kubiak to discuss the coach's inevitable contract extension, McNair expected to hand the coach a four-year extension. The same type of deal he'd give general manager Rick Smith who is now signed through 2016. Instead Kubiak pushed for a brand new three-year contract that would wipe out the last year of his current contract in 2012 and only take him through the 2014 season.

"Gary has assured me that with the level of success he's going to have, he's going to be worth a lot more money in three years instead of four. So I had to agree with him," McNair laughs, having announced both Smith and Kubiak's new deals in a a significant last day of mini camp.

The owner clearly gets a kick out of his coach's confidence and willingness to be something of a maverick. One of the first theories in coach contracts is that you want to get as long of a deal as possible for the coach because that makes him harder to fire. The more years a team has to eat, the less likely it's going to pull the trigger on a change (especially an organization as conservative as the Texans).

Kubiak went the other way though. He worked it so he only got two more years out of the deal (he was already signed for 2012, albeit at less money).

"Oh, I don't know," Kubiak says when asked about his thought process in the negotiation. "I've always kind of done my own stuff from a contract standpoint."

Kubiak isn't one for big talk — or for revealing many of his inner thoughts for that matter. Rex Ryan has little to worry about from Kubiak as far as headline grabbing. You'll hear more about the Jets coach's upcoming European vacation than anything Kubiak's ever done.

But make no mistake, this contract play shows more than a little bravado bubbles beneath Kubiak's often stoic demeanor. He truly believes that he and the Texans are poised to win big — and that he'll be in more demand when it happens.

The Confidence

Kubiak talks about planning "to be in this business for a long time." For a coach with as many 6-10 seasons as winning seasons, the 50-year-old Kubiak's never wavered in his belief that he'd turn out to be a difference-making coach along the lines of his mentors Mike Shanahan and George Seifert.

There isn't enough evidence to declare that yet. One 10-6 season, a legend does not make. This will be the first season in which Kubiak deals with Super Bowl-sized expectations, the first season in which finishing a few games above .500 in a league where everyone is geared to finish somewhere around .500 will not be enough.

You can be a very reasonable fan and still wonder if Kubiak is the man to push the Texans to a championship.

Smith's track record as a general manager is easier to tout, with picks like J.J. Watt, Connor Barwin, Brooks Reed and the discovery of Arian Foster hard to dispute. What's alarmed many fans — Smith's willingness to shed productive players with bigger contracts who aren't superstars, to turn over the roster before it's absolutely necessary — is actually a sign of Smith's understanding of what makes a modern NFL winner. You could almost dare argue that it is Giants and New England Patriots like.

The best NFL front offices are a little cold blooded.

Coaches can fall in love with players. General managers cannot afford themselves that luxury.

Still, even if you do want to doubt Kubiak, even if you want to credit a large part of the Texans transformation last season to the Yoga of NFL defensive coordinators (Wade Phillips), it's impossible not to give Kubiak credit for holding the team together and pushing Houston to the brink of the AFC Championship Game, playing a third-string, fifth-round draft pick at quarterback.

That's just not done in the NFL. You lose your starting quarterback and you die in this league. That's the reality. Kubiak more than earned his money last season.

He clearly knows how to help young offensive players develop. Kubiak taught Foster how to be a pro and now the new multi-millionaire is clearly one of the Texans most important team leaders.

"It's hard to pinpoint one thing you learn from him because there's so much," says Case Keenum, the rookie quarterback out of the University of Houston who has only been with Kubiak for four weeks. "He just knows how to teach."

It turns out, he also enjoys to gamble. Kubiak is putting his own success on the line. It's not some crazy, outrageous move. But it's a little bolder than you'd expect.

McNair loves the guy who told him he'd be paying him much more money in three years. That's not the Gary Kubiak Houston usually sees. But that's the coach with the bravado inside.