Researching this a bit, I think it's a bit of an ambiguity about cursor position. Potentially either approach is correct here as there is ambiguity to the meaning/intention. (And I can trigger a roughly similar situation outside a table, though there is some nuance there.)
Froala will only display one popup at a time. In this case, as it thinks your cursor is in the link, it will prioritize that one. Typing something so that you're cursor is unambiguously outside of the link will show the table popup.