ALLEN PARK -- Matt Patricia has had a crazy month.

He interviewed for three head coaching jobs, including twice with the Lions. He was trying to assemble a staff. He was also trying to coach the Patriots in the Super Bowl. Then he took a charter jet to Detroit on Monday afternoon, signed a contract, and was back in the air 90 minutes later to tie up loose ends in Massachusetts.

Two days later, he was back in Detroit to be introduced as the next Lions coach. The entire organization came out for the festivities, including everyone from the low-level building staffers all the way up to owner Martha Firestone Ford herself.

Again, it's just been a wild time in the life and times of Matt Patricia. And he knows exactly what he wants to do once life slows back down.

"I want to sit down in a giant room all by myself and watch 'Star Wars,'" he told MLive that night.

Turns out, the new Lions coach is a huge "Star Wars" nerd.

"Huge, man," he said. "Huge. Huge."

How huge?

"I still have a Millennium Falcon up in my room at my parents' house," he said. "This is major for me."

He's got action figures, too.

"Dominic was like 4 or 5 when he found them," Patricia said, referring to his son. "So here he is running around my parents house with all my 'Star Wars' figures from the '70s. I still have the vintage ones, you know. And I was running right behind him, and it was just like the most bizarre thing."

Patricia said he still remembers seeing the original "Star Wars" in theaters for the first time. He sat in the front row. He was 4.

"Look, I went in '77 in the front row and watched it like this," Patricia said, leaning forward in his chair at a 45-degree angle, voice quickening. "My eyes were just glazed over. I totally remember it."

Despite his fandom, Patricia said the last "Star Wars" movie he saw was "The Force Awakens" (2015). He still wants to see "Rogue One" and "The Last Jedi," but the movie people are making it hard on him with their release dates.

"These things come out in December," he said. "They're killing me, because I can't go. I just want to go sit by myself and watch this. I want to dial in."

Told the new "Solo" movie just dropped a new trailer and has a May release date, Patricia goes all-out paranoia mode.

"I don't know anything, I don't want to know anything," he said. "Just don't talk to me."

Patricia says it's cool to see his kids fall in love with something he fell in love with as a kid. He's already begun planning a trip to take the family to the new "Star Wars"-themed amusement park at Disney's Hollywood Studios. Hopefully by then he won't be scared of spoilers.

"Dominic is really into it," he said. "The Legos series is great now because of all the spinoffs of the Legos Star Wars. He's diving into like Darth Revan and all these old characters, which really for me in the '70s and '80s never really came up. But all the books that have come out and all the history behind it has brought them out. So my son is like, 'Dad, tell me about Darth Revan,' so I'm always hitting up Wookieepedia to look stuff up. And then of course I'm like, 'Dude, you got to hear this story, it's incredible.'"

Which really begs the question: Was this the first time in NFL history that a new coach dropped a Wookieepedia reference on his first day on the job?

The force appears to be strong with this one.