ALLEN PARK, Mich. -- The Detroit Lions are an intriguing team and have a bunch of interesting storylines the last month of the season. There are also hypotheticals that people are wondering about for the future.

In Saturday’s Mailbag, we take the ultimate hypothetical for Detroit – what would happen if the Lions won the Super Bowl – and try to give a little bit of an idea of what it could mean.

Want to ask a question for a daily mailbag? Use the hashtag #LionsMailbag on Twitter, email me at michael.rothstein@espn.com or hit me up on Facebook with a question here.

Now, on to today’s question.

Matthew Stafford's national profile will rise if the Lions continue to rise. Derick E. Hingle/USA TODAY Sports

Shelton from Parts Unknown asks over Facebook: Let’s say the sky opens up and the Lions actually win the Super Bowl. Should that change the perception of our team as a winning franchise or are we just the team that’s played in every year of the Super Bowl era but only won one? Or are we a marketable team after still small market?

Rothstein: There are a lot of hypotheticals here, including the Lions making the playoffs, winning their first playoff game since the 1991 season and making the first championship game of any kind for the Lions since 1957.

But let’s, for the sake of the question, say all of this actually happens and the Lions join the Cleveland Cavaliers and Chicago Cubs as champions from woebegone franchises. I think it would change the perception of the franchise both in the city and nationally.

Within the city, it seems like Detroit continues to hope beyond hope that this Lions team is for real and can do what so many other versions of the Detroit Lions have been unable to do. Even if Detroit were to make it to the Super Bowl and lose, I think it would be the biggest narrative shift of the franchise in decades, particularly if the Lions then built on it in 2017 with another playoff berth.

Nationally, the Lions have been getting a lot more attention lately and if they were to make or win a Super Bowl, it would cement Matthew Stafford as an actual star in the NFL and elevate the Q ratings of several players, including Golden Tate, Glover Quin, Darius Slay and potentially Marvin Jones and Theo Riddick. That alone would give Detroit more players of national interest and would raise the team’s profile across the country.

It would definitely make them a more marketable team, but for it to really change the tenor of the franchise, the Lions would have to sustain it for more than one season. Two playoff berths in three seasons would be a strong start.