Frawley initially played as a forward but soon became a renowned full back. He captained the St Kilda Football Club for nine seasons over his 240-game playing career from 1984 to 1995, was the club’s best and fairest winner in 1988 and was named in the All-Australian team the same year. He was the longest serving captain of the St Kilda Football Club. He was inducted into the Saints’ hall of fame in 2007.

Frawley became the senior coach of the Richmond Football Club in 2000. In his first year, Richmond just missed out of the finals by finishing ninth. In 2001, he took the Tigers into the finals where, in the preliminary finals, they were eliminated by the Brisbane Lions, who were the eventual premiers. Under Frawley, the club moved to fourth on the ladder and their first preliminary final since 1995. In 2002, however, Richmond struggled and finished 14th. This continued in 2003 when, after six wins and two losses to start to the season, they lost 13 of their next 14 matches. and finished 13th.

Richmond kept struggling and finished 16th (the “wooden spoon” position) in 2004. Midway through the season, Frawley announced that he would resign at the end of the season. Richmond lost their last 14 matches of the season. In 2008 and 2009, Frawley worked at Hawthorn as a part-time coach. He rejoined St Kilda as a back-line and key-position coach in November 2014.

After leaving coaching, Frawley was a special commentator for Triple M. In June 2006, he coached a winning Victorian state of origin side in the E. J. Whitten Legends Match and became the chief executive of the AFL Coaches Association. Later, and until 2018, Frawley was a part-time specialist defence coach at the St Kilda Football Club.

On 9 September 2019, a day after his 56th birthday, Frawley died in a car crash in Millbrook, Victoria. The incident occurred shortly after 1:30 pm, when his car left the road and struck a tree on Old Melbourne Road between Ryans and Chapmans Roads. He was the only person in the car at the time and died at the scene of the crash. An examination of his brain found nearly a year later that Frawley had suffered from stage two chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a neurodegenerative disease caused by repeated head injuries; his wife Anita said she had “strongly suspected there was more going on with Danny than straightforward depression”.