The Ramban in his Vikuach says that the one in the Gemara is indeed him, and he lived 200 years earlier than they claim. The Raavad in his Seder Hakabala brings both sides and seems to side with the view that it is him.
Tosafos famously says that it can’t be him because Papus Ben Yehuda was in the time of Rebbe Akiva.
You have to take this Shita with a grain of salt, since they might have been saying this to save their skin.