RENTON, Wash. — The Seattle Seahawks returned from their bye week suddenly facing an issue that could be significant for at least a few weeks: the loss of tight end Zach Miller, after he had arthroscopic ankle surgery.

Miller had the surgery last week to fix an issue that had apparently been bothering him for a while, though he had been playing through it. In fact, he was on the field for 71 of 78 snaps in the win a week ago Sunday against the Denver Broncos.

“It’s been bothering him for a number of weeks,” coach Pete Carroll said of Miller, an eight-year veteran who is in his fourth season with the Seahawks.

“He’s been playing with it and we just don’t want him to have to tolerate it any longer. We want to see if we can fix him up and hopefully he’ll have a speedy recovery. It’s just a clean-up kind of thing. But he had some loose bodies in his ankle that were bothering him and it was very, very uncomfortable.”

Carroll said Miller is likely to miss “a couple of weeks” but could conceivably return at any point after that.

While Miller is out, second-year player Luke Willson will fill in, as he did for two games last season when Miller was out because of a hamstring injury.

Willson is regarded as a solid receiver but probably not quite as good a blocker as Miller, who is generally considered one of the better blocking tight ends in the NFL.

“Luke’s done a really good job,” Carroll said of Willson, a fifth-round pick a year ago out of Rice who caught 20 passes as a rookie and has one reception this season. “He’s going to obviously play a ton now. It’s really a great opportunity for him to step up. He’s improved in every area.

“He’s one of those young guys that has really just gotten a ton better since he’s been with us. He’s stronger and he’s faster than he was a year ago because of the offseason so in every way he’s improved. This is a lot to ask of him, though. It’s the first time he’ll have this kind of duty but it’s his turn to step up.”

The Seahawks also have Cooper Helfet, a third-year player who saw his first action in a game against Denver on special teams, as a backup tight end.

The Seahawks have already used their option to place a player on Injured Reserve with the designation to return — they used that on cornerback Jeremy Lane — so they will just have to hold on to a roster spot for Miller until he returns.

That’s one reason Carroll said the Seahawks will try to just get by with who it has on the roster rather than signing someone from outside.

“We’ve looked hard; we’ve had a lot of guys in here,” Carroll said. “We’ve worked out a lot of people. We would like to stay with our people; all of the banking on the communication and on the system working for us. We’re going to get it fixed right here.”

Coming off the bye, Seattle has entered its week of preparation for Monday night’s game at Washington pretty healthy.

“We wanted to maximize the chance to get our guys as fresh as possible for this big push here through the season so we did bye, at this point, really successfully,” Carroll said. “We will find out if the result was good when we go out and play on Monday night.”