Gary Kubiak is a schemer not a screamer. But with another game slipping away from the Houston Texans, with his last-chance season taking a sharp turn toward trouble, the coach knows that all the pretty plays in his playbook can't save him.

Kubiak needs to get into someone's face. So he takes the Texans' entire offense to task, rails against his guys and demands more.

This isn't the tinkering, offensively eccentric calm scientist who can turn little-known James Casey into a star when he has little else one week and make Owen Daniels into the best tight end in Texas when his lifeline wide receiver limps off the next. No, this is a head coach getting livid — losing it for the maximum effect.

Maybe, it isn't quite Rex Ryan going ballistic, but it's everything the Texans need.

"I don't think what he said was as special or important as the way in which he said it," right tackle Eric Winston says of Kubiak's sideline challenge. "The urgency with which he said it. The passion he showed. He made it clear, this was it. We had to do something."

How's this for something? An 85-yard fourth quarter touchdown drive right after the defending AFC champion Pittsburgh Steelers grabbed all the momentum in the world. Make that a five-play 85-yard drive — a little glimpse and reminder of just how explosive Kubiak's offense can be even when it's only operating with wideouts who'd be third wide receivers at best on most other NFL teams. To win the game, 17-10.

Yeah, that's a little something.

All brought about by Kubiak getting out of character. Pittsburgh coach Mike Tomlin is supposed to be the screamer, the master motivator who's somehow taken one of the NFL's signature franchises to another level after The Jaw (Bill Cowher) departed. But Tomlin has nothing on Kubiak in a seismic Sunday for the Texans, one that has the team's owner Bob McNair talking about it in terms of his franchise's biggest win ever.

Those Kubiak-beloved John Elway Broncos had The Drive (I and II). Now, Kubiak and the Texans have The Tirade.

It comes at the end of the third quarter, a quarter in which the Steelers out gained the Texans an incredible 139 yards to two, a quarter in which a 10-0 Houston lead bolts out of Reliant's open roof. Kubiak is not going to take it anymore.

So he gathers his offense and tells them that quarter was pathetic, unacceptable, un-Texan-like — all in an anything but mild way.

"We ran three plays the whole third quarter," Winston says. "That's not the Texans offense. We don't go three and out. We at least get a few first downs and turn the field around. Gary let us know that. Who knew how many chances we'd get in the fourth? One, two."

The Texans grab the very next chance — just when it looks like it might be another crushing three and out. Facing third-and-6 on his own 19-yard line, backpedaling quarterback Matt Schaub unleashes a throw that could easily be incomplete. Calling it something of a clunker would be kind. It is low, near-the-shoelaces low. It is slightly behind his intended target, his only chance.

Only Daniels gets his hands even lower and he reaches back and scoops up that dud, turns it into one of the most beautiful plays Kubiak's likely ever seen. First down! Who needs artistic points anyway? This ain't gymnastics. As Tomlin might scream, "It's football, dammit."

"Matt was under pressure and that's really the only place he could throw it," Daniels says. "It's up to me to go get that ball in that situation. You have to make a play. It's all about making a play for your team."

Suddenly, the Texans are making plays all over the field. Daniels breaks free for an easy 30-yard catch. Foster cuts back for a 42-yard touchdown run of beauty that reminds everyone of why he rightly could have won NFL MVP last year. Then, there's cornerback Jason Allen (the guy who was beaten out for a starting job by Kareem Jackson — how'd you like that on your resume?) making the biggest defensive play of the game playing in place of the injured Jackson.

That's what Allen leveling Hines Ward and separating the veteran receiver from the football on a seemingly sure third-down conversion catch on Pittsburgh's next series represents. Biggest defensive play of the game.

"Jason's been playing well all season," says Johnathan Joseph, the big-dollar free agent cornerback who's already one of the clear, unquestioned leaders of the defense. "And when he had to make a play, he made it. That's toughness."

That's the Texans?

Maybe, just maybe. I wrote last Sunday after the meltdown in New Orleans how the Texans seemed more angry than deflated by a fall-from-ahead loss for once. How that even though the final result screamed same old Texans, the locker room felt very different. Then a week later, even Kubiak shows his anger in The Tirade.

"He doesn't do that very often," tight end Joel Dreessen says. "But when he does do it, it's very effective."

Dreessen is sporting a fresh red gash on the bridge of his nose, something of a merit badge for a team finding its toughness.

Battering Big Ben

​It's not often that a team walks away from a game against the Texans feeling completely beat up and pushed around. But that's exactly how Tomlin and the Steelers limp into the sunny fall afternoon. Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger is seen heading to the bus on crutches, his foot encased in a walking boot.

The Texans sack Big Ben five times and hit him eight more times. Mario Williams picks up two more sacks (so much for those 3-4 worries) and combines with his buddy Antonio Smith for back-to-back sacks of Roethlisberger on one crucial fourth quarter series.

"I give Antonio a lot of coaching," Williams deadpans with Smith howling at the next locker. "Tell him which techniques to take . . . He takes the coaching very well."

Yes, the Texans are having fun. It's much more enjoyable to be the bully rather than the bullied in the NFL.

"I wouldn't want to be the offense going up against our defensive front when they know they have to pass," Texans center Chris Myers says. "We've got some guys who can get after the quarterback."

On this day, Tomlin is the one who cannot find an answer. His quarterback is getting beat up, week after week after week — and there's nothing that can motivate away a walking boot.

Suddenly, Kubiak is the one with solutions — and The Tirade.

"A lot of this league is attitude and belief," Daniels says. "If you think you're all right, you're probably going to be just all right. If you think you're great, you have a good chance to be great."

Kubiak demands greatness in The Tirade. Sometimes, it's good to be a screamer.