Birds of prey didn’t evolve from dromaeosaurs – in fact, the definition of dromaeosauridae is “everything closer to Deinonychus than to Troodon or Passer”. Passer is the house sparrow, and since multiple lines of evidence indicate that modern birds only evolved once, this very much excludes modern raptors.
Modern raptors are related to Velociraptor – but then, so are modern chickens, and parrots, and hummingbirds. Actually, all modern birds are equally closely related to dromaeosaurs! Rather than grandparents of today’s birds, dromaeosaurs were more like cousins – not directly ancestral, but a related line of the family. If you think of modern birds as siblings in this analogy, it’s pretty easy to understand that no sibling is more closely related to the cousins.
valar apologist 