diff --git a/drivers/net/ethernet/amazon/ena/ena_netdev.c b/drivers/net/ethernet/amazon/ena/ena_netdev.c
index ce18e07ff5adb2566fdc35cb1ff3e91e5813871c..d906293ce07d9d6edab5cd03f32dea94597987b1 100644
--- a/drivers/net/ethernet/amazon/ena/ena_netdev.c
+++ b/drivers/net/ethernet/amazon/ena/ena_netdev.c
@@ -1575,8 +1575,6 @@ static int ena_up_complete(struct ena_adapter *adapter)
 	if (rc)
 		return rc;
 
-	ena_init_napi(adapter);
-
 	ena_change_mtu(adapter->netdev, adapter->netdev->mtu);
 
 	ena_refill_all_rx_bufs(adapter);
@@ -1730,6 +1728,13 @@ static int ena_up(struct ena_adapter *adapter)
 
 	ena_setup_io_intr(adapter);
 
+	/* napi poll functions should be initialized before running
+	 * request_irq(), to handle a rare condition where there is a pending
+	 * interrupt, causing the ISR to fire immediately while the poll
+	 * function wasn't set yet, causing a null dereference
+	 */
+	ena_init_napi(adapter);
+
 	rc = ena_request_io_irq(adapter);
 	if (rc)
 		goto err_req_irq;