diff --git a/sys/dev/nvme/nvme_qpair.c b/sys/dev/nvme/nvme_qpair.c
--- a/sys/dev/nvme/nvme_qpair.c
+++ b/sys/dev/nvme/nvme_qpair.c
@@ -536,16 +536,31 @@
 	int done = 0;
 	bool in_panic = dumping || SCHEDULER_STOPPED();
 
-	qpair->num_intr_handler_calls++;
-
 	/*
 	 * qpair is not enabled, likely because a controller reset is is in
 	 * progress.  Ignore the interrupt - any I/O that was associated with
-	 * this interrupt will get retried when the reset is complete.
+	 * this interrupt will get retried when the reset is complete. Any
+	 * pending completions for when we're in startup will be completed
+	 * as soon as initialization is complete and we start sending commands
+	 * to the device.
 	 */
 	if (qpair->recovery_state != RECOVERY_NONE)
 		return (false);
 
+	/*
+	 * Sanity check initialization. After we reset the hardware, the phase
+	 * is defined to be 1. So if we get here with zero prior calls and the
+	 * phase is 0, it means that we've lost a race between the
+	 * initialization and the ISR running. With the phase wrong, we'll
+	 * process a bunch of completions that aren't really completions leading
+	 * to a KASSERT below.
+	 */
+	KASSERT(!(qpair->num_intr_handler_calls == 0 && qpair->phase == 0),
+	    ("%s: Phase wrong for first interrupt call.",
+		device_get_nameunit(qpair->ctrlr->dev)));
+
+	qpair->num_intr_handler_calls++;
+
 	bus_dmamap_sync(qpair->dma_tag, qpair->queuemem_map,
 	    BUS_DMASYNC_POSTREAD | BUS_DMASYNC_POSTWRITE);
 	/*
diff --git a/sys/dev/nvme/nvme_sysctl.c b/sys/dev/nvme/nvme_sysctl.c
--- a/sys/dev/nvme/nvme_sysctl.c
+++ b/sys/dev/nvme/nvme_sysctl.c
@@ -155,8 +155,13 @@
 nvme_qpair_reset_stats(struct nvme_qpair *qpair)
 {
 
+	/*
+	 * Reset the values. Due to sanity checks in
+	 * nvme_qpair_process_completions, we reset the number of interrupt
+	 * calls to 1.
+	 */
 	qpair->num_cmds = 0;
-	qpair->num_intr_handler_calls = 0;
+	qpair->num_intr_handler_calls = 1;
 	qpair->num_retries = 0;
 	qpair->num_failures = 0;
 }