If this is true - then that's a perfectly good explanation. I think it's safe to assume that Rogers gave Atkins the "thumbs up" to cover the $11M to get the international money - possibly to give us a better shot at landing Sasaki and it likely will have no impact on our 2025 budget.
I know this might be crazy, but perhaps Atkins didn't get caught with his pants down - not knowing that he could wait and make that trade later, if Sasaki did sign with Toronto. Maybe he didn't sacrifice any remaining 2025 budget or eat into CBT space that they might be looking at.
I'm certainly not surprised, as even for Atkins, those initial claims just didn't make a lot of sense. This is a good example of why fans should wait for more/better information to become available - or just give the guy the benefit of the doubt a bit - before jumping to conclusions and making all kinds of BS allegations and claims. People do this in general far too much and it's eroding society.