The Saints await status updates on injured quarterback Derek Carr

As of midday Tuesday, there was no update on the status of New Orleans Saints quarterback Derek Carr, who left Monday's game against Kansas City with an oblique injury in the fourth quarter.

Carr said he sustained the injury on a deep pass attempt from Mason Tipton with 9:38 left in the Saints' 26-13 road loss, which was due to the torque generated by the throw.

Coach Dennis Allen said he would likely know the status in the afternoon or evening.

“Medics went over all the exams this morning,” Allen said Tuesday, noting that the Saints arrived back in New Orleans at 2:30 a.m. Tuesday. “I expect to get a medical update on all of these guys probably at some point (Tuesday afternoon) as far as what happened during the game.”

Carr completed 18 of 28 passes for 165 yards and two touchdowns with one interception in the game.

He was replaced by Jake Haener, a fourth-round pick last year who completed two of seven passes for 17 yards and ran twice for nine yards.

“I thought he went in and did well,” Allen said of Haener. “He was under a lot of pressure, it got to the point in the game where they kind of loosened up the pass rush. I don’t think there were many opportunities for him.”

Overall, the Saints were 2-3, their worst performance of the season after losing three straight in Sunday's game against Tampa Bay (3-2) at Caesars Superdome.

“I don’t feel like we played our best football,” Allen said. “I think we really need to pay attention to what we do going forward and we need to play better than we did on Monday night.”

“We played against a good football team in a hostile environment and we didn't do well in that game. This just shows us that we still have a lot of work to do and we are going to work hard.” try to do that.

Allen said the Saints coaches may have to scale back their demands on players.

“When you don't play as well as we need to – and I thought we made some uncharacteristic mistakes in this game that we hadn't made in the first four weeks – I know we have some new ones defensively “I know we did some things offensively, but we just didn't execute as well as we should have,” he said.

“That's why I think as coaches we have to pay attention to what part we have in this, how we can put our guys in a better position to be successful, how we can simplify the mindset of these guys so they don't have to .” I've thought a lot, they can just go out and play. I think that's what we're going to do today as we prepare for Tampa Bay this week.

Some of the offensive struggles may have been due to attrition on the offensive lines. The Saints have been without starting center Erik McCoy since he left the game in Philadelphia on Sept. 22, and starting right guard Cesar Ruiz exited the game against the Eagles but has missed the last two games.

Left guard Lucas Patrick moved to center to close out the game in Philadelphia, but against Atlanta he moved back to left guard while Shane Lemieux started at center and Landon Young served as right guard. After Lemieux injured his ankle against Atlanta and was sidelined against the Chiefs, Patrick returned to center and Nick Saldiveri started at left defense.

When Patrick suffered a collarbone injury during the game against Kansas City, Connor McGovern volunteered as a center player. However, when Patrick was able to safely return to the game, he came back to play at left-back, replacing Saldiveri, with McGovern finishing the game at center.

“These guys were in a tough situation,” Allen said. “At times I had the feeling that we were able to keep up quite well. I thought we held up pretty well, especially in defense, at least at the start of the game. “We probably weren't as good as we needed to be later in the game.”

“I don’t think we got the movement we needed on the line of scrimmage to get the run game going, so that was a little disappointing.”

“It's a difficult thing to make so many changes on the offensive line, and yet we have to find ways to still move the ball and be effective.”