Keep Pounding

Team Story

Hemlok's Keep Pounding opened with a quarterback room most dynasty teams envy: Patrick Mahomes at 1.05 and Tyreek Hill at 2.16 in the 2023 startup. They went 10-5 in the South Side (division 1), beat Big Tex 154.9 to 98.2 in the 2023 quarterfinals, and reached the third-place game, where thompr edged them 100.3 to 95.3. Fourth place, but a genuine contender out of the gate.

Then 2024 detonated. Keep Pounding went 2-13, the worst record in the league, and made the moment worse: at Week 8, mid-collapse, they traded a 2026 first-round pick to 2nd Hand Smoke for a 34-year-old Travis Kelce. Buying an aging tight end with future draft capital while sitting near the bottom is the kind of move that haunts a rebuild. They finished ninth.

The 2025 rookie draft handed them a clean reset: Ashton Jeanty at 1.01. Keep Pounding climbed back to 8-7 and returned to the playoffs, though Big Tex throttled them 121.7 to 196.1 in the first round and The Prodigies took the fifth-place game 103.7 to 88.0. Progress, capped by a reminder of the ceiling.

The defining fact of the ledger is who owns them. The Prodigies have beaten Keep Pounding in all seven meetings, 0-7 with the playoffs counted, and Big Tex holds a 5-1 regular-season edge and bounced them from the 2025 bracket. Going into 2026 the centerpiece is Jeanty, but the 2026 first they spent on Kelce is gone, which thins the very rebuild Jeanty is meant to anchor.