[3] He played an integral role in Donegal's successful 2011–14 run of matches, starting every Championship game in that period.
Top scorer in the 2012 All-Ireland SFC, McFadden was subsequently shortlisted for the All Stars Footballer of the Year, but team-mate Karl Lacey was selected to receive that award.
McFadden's haul of Ulster SFC titles was a joint county team record (alongside such past players as Anthony Molloy, Martin McHugh, Joyce McMullan and Donal Reid) for four years until Patrick McBrearty, Neil McGee, Paddy McGrath, Leo McLoone, Frank McGlynn, Michael Murphy and Anthony Thompson surpassed it in 2018.
[5][6] Previously, in 2004, they reached the final of All-Ireland Intermediate Club Football Championship, in which McFadden played but was held scoreless.
He started the first game of Brian McEniff's last spell as Donegal manager, a league defeat to Galway in Tuam in February 2003, during which he scored two points.
McFadden made a late substitute appearance for Brendan Devenney in that 2003 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship semi-final against Armagh.
[8][14] McFadden would return to play a vital part in the Donegal team that won their first National Football League title in 2007.
[16] Donegal then defeated Armagh in the first round of the Ulster Senior Football Championship, only to lose to Tyrone in the next fixture.
[8] In 2009, to McFadden's surprise, Donegal advanced to the All-Ireland Senior Football Championship quarter-finals, defeating 2001 champions Galway along the way.
RTÉ's television cameras caught McFadden grinning ironically at the timing of such a request — but all irony was lost in the scramble to condemn the player's attitude.
[22] He scored an unusual goal in the seventh minute of Donegal's All-Ireland Senior Football Championship quarter-final defeat of Kerry at Croke Park, later describing it as "fortunate".
[25][26] His goal helped Donegal win the Sam Maguire Cup and was part of a total of 1–4 (including three frees) which McFadden scored during the game.
[30] McFadden made his 51st championship appearance against Derry in the Ulster quarter-final on 25 May 2014, a team record which had until then been held by Michael Hegarty.
[33] On 6 August 2016, McFadden announced he would be retiring from playing with Donegal following his team's exit from the 2016 All-Ireland Senior Football Championship against Dublin.
[2] In November 2022, it was announced that McFadden would be forwards coach of the Sligo senior footballers, under the management of Tony McEntee[38] from January 2023.
[13][42] That 2000 final victory over St Columb's of Derry at Casement Park has been described as "arguably the match that catapulted him to people's attention outside of Donegal".
There he won the All-Ireland Freshers and, two years after that, the Sigerson Cup, with the final held at Cork's Páirc Uí Rinn.
[13][43] McFadden began working as a teacher at his old secondary school, St Eunan's College, where the success of the 2012 Donegal team lifted the spirits of staff, including mathematical whiz Edward Harvey — seen on RTÉ with an enormous grin on his face at the end of the semi-final against Cork.
McFadden told the Irish Examiner, "Eddie Harvey said to me last year when he was in the leisure centre, he'd pop into the jacuzzi and everyone would be talking doom and gloom and the recession.