Las Vegas Posse The Las Vegas Posse was a Canadian Football League team that played the 1994 season as part of the CFL ' s short - lived American expansion . The Posse was one of the least successful CFL teams , both on the field and off . History . On the field . The Posse had notable football talent such as KR Tamarick Vanover , RB Jon Volpe , LB Greg Battle and K Carlos Huerta . They also had a rookie quarterback named Anthony Calvillo , who would later go on to become the all - time leader in passing yards in all of professional football . The franchise also had an experienced coaching staff with Head Coach , Ron Meyer who had previous coaching experiences with UNLV and in the NFL , and also had future Winnipeg Blue Bombers coach Jeff Reinebold as one of their Assistant Coaches . Carlos Huerta won the Jackie Parker Trophy as the Most Outstanding Rookie of the West Division that year . The Posse started with wins over the Sacramento Gold Miners and Saskatchewan Roughriders , but things quickly went downhill . Part of the problem was lack of familiarity with the Canadian game . For instance , during a game against the B . C . Lions , Vanover signaled for a fair catch - - not knowing that there is no fair catch in Canadian football . The ball rolled into the Posse end zone , and the Lions recovered it for a touchdown . Players openly complained about the apathy of their coaches and teammates . The Posse finished the season 5 – 13 and finished last in the West Division and next - to - last in the CFL . Off the field . When the Posse started the 1994 season it was clear that CFL football would not last in Las Vegas . The team ' s owner , Nick Mileti , was based in Cleveland , Ohio . The team played at Sam Boyd Stadium in suburban Whitney . The stadium was uncovered and offered no protection from the infamous Las Vegas summer heat ( the CFL season runs from the summer through the fall so it can end before the harsh Canadian winters set in ) . Head coach Ron Meyer was seen at many practices running drills with no shirt on in the sweltering heat . The Posse practiced in a smaller - than - regulation field ( only 70 yards long ) at the Riviera Casino and Resort , where a sign read " Field of ImPOSSEable Dreams . " The end zones at Sam Boyd Stadium were only 15 yards long , instead of the usual 20 yards . With no marketing assistance from the league and a glut of other entertainment options , local interest was virtually nonexistent . The most memorable moment for the franchise occurred on July 8 , 1994 , when the team played the Sacramento Gold Miners in the first ever CFL match involving two American based teams . The Posse defeated the Gold Miners 32 – 26 at Sacramento ' s Hornet Stadium . There were also several infamous moments . At the team ' s first home game against Saskatchewan , the singer of the national anthems , Dennis K . C . Parks , had only a vague knowledge of the Canadian anthem and so improvised something that made " O Canada " sound somewhat like " O Christmas Tree " . Two weeks later he was brought to a game in Hamilton , Ontario where he sang it properly . On another occasion Posse head coach Ron Meyer asked the " Showgirls " to loiter behind the bench of the B . C . Lions in an attempt to distract the opposition . The scheme did not work and Las Vegas lost the game 39 – 16 . The Posse ' s attendance figures were never very good to begin with , but significantly tailed off as the summer wore on . Management unsuccessfully tried to sell tickets by employing tactics such as : The Posse ' s penultimate home game against the Winnipeg Blue Bombers had an announced attendance of only 2 , 350 people — the lowest recorded attendance in CFL history . Many of those in attendance were fans who made the trip from Winnipeg . Just before the team ' s last scheduled home game , against the Edmonton Eskimos , Mileti announced the team would disband due to massive losses . The CFL , however , did not allow teams to fold in midseason . Instead , citing the team ' s wretched gates , it moved the game to Commonwealth Stadium in Edmonton . Several Eskimo season ticket holders has already arrived in Las Vegas and were forced to watch the game in a ballroom at the Imperial Palace because Air Canada wouldn ' t allow them to go back to Edmonton on such short notice . The Posse ' s average attendance was a dismal 8 , 953 . In the end . After the season , Mileti entered talks with a group from Milwaukee looking to move the Posse there . A group led by singer and business mogul Jimmy Buffett attempted to buy and relocate the franchise to Jackson , Mississippi , but the deal fell through . The Posse were then quietly folded and a dispersal draft was held for its players in 1995 . Defensive end Derrell Robertson , who had been killed in a December 1994 car accident , was included ; the league was unaware of Robertson ' s death and included him in the pool of potential draftees , and the Ottawa Rough Riders selected him . It was only after attempting — and failing — to find Robertson did the Rough Riders ( and the league ) realize that Robertson was dead . According to Riders coach Jim Gilstrap in a June 1995 " Sports Illustrated " article , " the league didn ' t know he was dead until we told them , and we didn ' t know until we couldn ' t find him . " After the dispersal draft another group from Miami tried to purchase the remains of the Posse and move the team to Miami . The deal was that the franchise would return for the 1996 season as the " Manatee s . " In order to introduce the Miami fans to the CFL game , a pre - season game was played at the Orange Bowl between the Baltimore Stallions and the Birmingham Barracudas in 1995 ( Baltimore won the game by a score of 37 – 0 ) . However , the deal fell apart when the CFL ended its American experiment after the 1995 season . Despite the Posse ' s failure , the Posse was the first effort by any major professional sports league to place a team in Las Vegas proper ; this is something that most major leagues have traditionally avoided due in part to Las Vegas ' s gambling reputation , as well as the fact that the city has only recently grown to major size . Future professional football leagues would emulate this , with the XFL ' s Las Vegas Outlaws , the Arena League ' s Las Vegas Sting and Las Vegas Gladiators , and the UFL ' s Las Vegas Locomotives all residing in the city . The Outlaws and Locomotives did somewhat better drawing fans to Sam Boyd Stadium than the Posse did , although both experienced steep declines as the years went on ( to the point where the Locomotives were drawing fewer than the Posse by the end of their run ) . They also had better on - field performance , particularly the Locomotives , who have won two of the league ' s three championships and finished second in the other .